Volume 72, Issue #4 | Winter 2012

In Miami in the summer of 1987, Jobs with Justice was born after months of preparation. CWA was a principal founder and as CWA organizing director at the time, I had been pushing for a different approach to workers? rights and economic justice. The CWA convention was in Miami and Miami was home to Eastern Air Lines, recently acquired by Continental Air Lines and robber baron CEO Frank Lorenzo. The fight at Eastern/Continental, restructuring that resembles plundering, has continued almost unchecked ever since.

Twenty-three U.S. Senators, led by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.), have called on President Obama to make certain that any agreement includes specific provisions to protect American jobs.

In Germany, members of ver.di, the union representing telecom workers at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile, have taken the fight of T-Mobile USA workers to heart. Since CWA and ver.di joined together to form TU, a joint union for all Deutsche Telekom workers in the U.S. and Germany, German workers have stood up for their U.S. counterparts in lots of way.

There has been a fierce attack on public workers in Ohio, New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin and too many other states. And that attack isn't easing, especially with right wing politicians holding the majority in many state legislatures and serving as governors.

U.S. workers in the manufacturing sector were first to be hit by offshoring. More than three decades ago, telecom equipment manufacturers like Western Electric were moving production offshore and big employers like GE and Westinghouse were doing the same. In fact former GE CEO Jack Welch even boasted about it in 1998: "Ideally, you'd have every plant you own on a barge." GE not only worked to offshore jobs, it pressured suppliers to move work overseas too. But we've seen some positive changes in manufacturing lately, as IUE-CWA members at Appliance Park, Ky., demonstrate.