Resolution 75A-15-4
The organizing climate for workers who want a union is tougher today than at any time in our recent history. Only 6.6 percent of private sector workers are members of a union, the lowest percentage since the beginning of the 1900s. Employers both private and public are attacking workers’ right to organize and to bargain collectively. No matter how tough it is, we know that we cannot limit ourselves to playing defense in contract negotiations. We must organize the unorganized workers throughout our sectors and industries in order to gain bargaining clout.
CWA has a long tradition of digging in for the long haul as we stand with workers in our key industries who are determined to get their union. It took six years to organize 40,000 New Jersey state workers. We spent five years fighting for and finally winning card check recognition at SBC, and as a result today there are more than 54,000 new CWA-represented workers at AT&T operations including AT&T Mobility and Internet Services. We worked for 18 years with American Airlines Passenger Service Agents and broke through last year, leading to 9,000 new CWA-represented workers largely in the South. Years of organizing Cablevision recently resulted in a breakthrough win in Brooklyn.
At T-Mobile US we have spent five years building TU, a growing union of workers, with help from our brothers and sisters in ver.di, the German union representing workers at Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s German parent company. At Delta Airlines, Flight Attendants have been organizing for 20 years, through numerous elections, and they are not giving up. We have spent years working with public sector organizations, with and without the right to bargain collectively, and have been able to build strong locals from Texas to Tennessee to New Jersey.
In this environment there are no quick fixes, no magic bullets, no short cuts. It will take long term commitments and significant resources to grow our union and movement in a strategic manner.
It has to be done. If we do not build union representation in our sectors, employers will keep trying to push down our wages and benefits. It is as though all the non-union members in our industry are sitting across the bargaining table from us. We want to bargain from a position of strength, and that means supporting long term organizing campaigns that will expand collective bargaining rights for workers.
Resolved: CWA will not stop organizing. We will dig deeper and fight harder, longer, and smarter to continue to organize the unorganized wherever workers are willing to keep up the fight.
Resolved: CWA will provide the resources necessary especially in our key industries, including telecom, airlines, wireless, cable/satellite TV, media, manufacturing and public sector to sustain long-term organizing campaigns.
Resolved: CWA will never stop organizing, even in the most trying of times, and we will not give up but rather be there "one day longer, each day stronger," standing with workers who want a CWA voice.