These oral history interviews capture the stories of Communications Workers of America leaders who led the transformation of the union during tumultuous times from the early 1970s to 2024.
This was a period of dynamic change within the union and the nation. Within the larger society, these decades were characterized by a period of deregulatory, anti-government free-market public policies; aggressive anti-union employers; and wage stagnation for working people. Over these years, private sector union rates dropped from 24 to six percent.
Within CWA, the union changed from one representing Bell telephone system employees working in a relatively stable monopoly industry to a union representing workers in highly competitive sectors in airlines, manufacturing, broadcasting, news media, gaming, telecommunications, health care, and state and local government. The CWA membership and leadership became more diverse as women, people of color, and LGBTQ leaders and staff rose to the top ranks of the union. During these years, CWA adopted mobilization programs to build membership activism and power at the bargaining table, in contract enforcement, organizing new members, electing pro-worker legislators, and promoting a progressive public policy agenda.
The oral histories in this collection tell the stories of creative, feisty union leaders from all CWA sectors, all the geographic districts, and the many faces of the changing CWA. In these histories, these leaders recount their early life experiences that shaped their adult commitments to economic and racial justice and the labor movement. They give detailed accounts about the work they did as nurses, cable splicers, telephone operators, service representatives, broadcast technicians, welfare department employees, journalists, and more. They talk about their early careers as shop stewards and officers, as staff representatives and regional and national leaders, and the lessons they learned about leadership and member mobilization.
These stories illustrate how this generation of CWA leaders built on founding president Joe Beirne’s CWA Triangle in adapting new strategies and tactics to build worker power through representation, organizing, and movement building.
The interviews in CWA Oral History Project 2024 were conducted by Debbie Goldman, retired CWA Research Director, Jeff Rechenbach, retired CWA Secretary-Treasurer, and oral historian John McKerley in 2023 and 2024. Hannah Aliza Goldman served as producer. A grant from the Joe Beirne Foundation supported the production.
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