Working Together: Campaigning to Secure Our Jobs, Benefits and Rights

In calculating our stake in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, it's useful to look at the four core issues we've identified as our focus in CWA's strategic plan, Ready for the Future.  Those issues are:  jobs, health care, retirement security, and collective bargaining and organizing rights.

Stories that follow in this special CWA News report discuss the connection between politics and each of these issues through actions or in some cases inaction by our elected leaders.

• Jobs.  Whether it's outsourcing to a contractor down the street, shipping offices and jobs offshore, or importing foreign temp workers through special visa programs, good jobs are vanishing in a binge of corporate outsourcing.
  Elected officials at both federal and state levels not only are failing to elevate this issue and hold corporations accountable for job destruction, they're pushing policies that make matters worse.  Flawed "free trade" agreements with no worker protections along with tax programs that actually promote offshoring have contributed to a loss of over 3 million good U.S. jobs since 2001.  For example, Intel pocketed $6.2 billion in tax relief on foreign investment — a tax break to supposedly spur job creation back home in America — then announced it was laying off 10,000 U.S. workers.
  
  
• Health care.  This administration and Congress have done nothing about addressing the health care crisis. We all pay the burden of subsidizing medical treatment for the 46 million uninsured through soaring health benefit premiums, and employers demand cost-shifting to workers and retirees every time we bargain a contract.
  A political solution is a large part of the answer.  We must elect members of Congress who will take action, such as supporting "Medicare for All."
  
  
• Retirement security.  In 2004, only 37 percent of American workers had traditional pension plans compared to 88 percent in 1983, and today, it's even lower.  As employers freeze pension plans, or take advantage of the bankruptcy process to dump them, as did United Airlines and Delphi, more workers depend on Social Security benefits as the basis for retirement.
  However, Social Security privatization still looms as a threat.  While President Bush temporarily shelved the privatization idea last year, he said the proposal will resurface in the next session of Congress.  "If we can't get it done next year, I'm going to try the year after that," the president stated recently.
  
  
• Collective bargaining and organizing rights.  The Bush-appointed majority on the National Labor Relations Board continues to roll back workers' bargaining and organizing rights, and a pending case could strip union recognition rights from nurses and millions of others.  One solution is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, but that depends on electing a pro-worker congressional majority and a change in the White House in 2008.  Meanwhile, we all suffer from the consequences of only 8 percent of U.S. private sector workers covered by union contracts.
  These are the issues that determine our support for election candidates this year, and they are the issues that we will measure their performance by when it comes to earning our support next time around.

These key issues affect all CWA members and our bargaining power.  In addition, we have individual legislative and policy goals in each CWA sector, such as the Speed Matters campaign, which can create thousands of telecom jobs as well as boost our economy overall.

Political action isn't the entire answer to securing our jobs, benefits and workplace rights — but it's a major element of our CWA Triangle, along with representation and organizing.

Our political program can't just be tied to elections every two years, either.  CWA's strategic plan aims at building a broad political movement rooted in our issues and values — and led by an "army of stewards and activists" as Ready for the Future envisions.

However, the elections this November 7 are an opportunity to take an important step forward in electing governors, state legislators and a Congress that will be responsive to working families and our critical issues.  As you can see in this edition of CWA News, our locals and members are actively campaigning in every region.   All of us on the Executive Board are proud and inspired by the reports we hear of CWA members working to change the direction of our country.