CWA Members Gear Up for 2024 Campaign with Union Legislative and Political Conference

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hundreds of union members with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to set the union’s legislative and political agenda. CWA members in key swing states and across the country have already begun having conversations with their coworkers about the issues that will matter most to working families in November’s pivotal elections.

“Now, we know that the most effective way to reach voters is through face-to-face conversation…and no groups are more well-positioned to have real conversations than unions. It’s our superpower,” CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. told union members during the keynote address. “Party politics doesn’t matter. Whether you’re red or blue is beside the point. The only question that matters to me is: are you with us, the workers, or not? Plain and simple. I’m going to look at every candidate’s record and see whether they have stood with us. And if they won’t stand with us, then we won’t stand with them.”

Extolling the Biden Administration’s record of promoting good union jobs by investing in broadband infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and green transportation and energy, President Cummings told members, “Joe Biden and the people he has appointed see us as partners, not props.”

“I have clawed my way out of poverty, and I want that for the next generation. I even bought my first house. That’s all thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act,” said Adam Gendron, an IUE-CWA member. “Donald Trump is a scab. Do we want to elect a billionaire grifter or the first president to walk a picket line?”

Union members heard directly from Biden Administration officials, including Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai, and White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jared Bernstein, on priority issues for the union, including broadband infrastructure, artificial intelligence, digital trade policy, and the use of the USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism to enforce the rights of call center workers.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) shared the legislative achievements that union members have made with the support of the Biden Administration: “We saved the pensions of a million union members, including tens of thousands of CWA members. We did that together!”

Union members cheered for members of Congress, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Representatives Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.), Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.).

“I’m a registered Republican, but I can tell you that I’m voting for Joe Biden this November because he stands on the side of workers,” said Scott Keehn, a member of Wells Fargo Workers United-CWA.

###

About CWA: The Communications Workers of America represents working people in telecommunications, customer service, media, airlines, health care, public service and education, manufacturing, tech, and other fields.

cwa-union.org @cwaunion