September 2, 2024
Dear CWA Members and Retirees,
In the labor movement, we honor and learn from our past and fight for our future.
Today, 17,000 CWA members who work at AT&T Southeast are in a fight. They are on strike because AT&T is not bargaining in good faith. When CWA’s Executive Board authorized this strike, we knew that our members would remain strong, and they have. They are standing strong on the picket line because they know that prior generations of CWA members fought for what we have today. They have our union’s full support, including financial support from our Members’ Relief Fund.
Our union started as a movement of telephone workers who joined together to improve working conditions. Those workers struggled to build a union, and AT&T, the primary employer at the time, promoted company-controlled fake unions to successfully destroy the independent union movement in the industry.
It was not until 1935, when Congress passed, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that communications workers had the freedom to establish lasting unions. The NLRA prohibited unfair labor practices - like establishing company unions - and protected collective action by workers to improve their working conditions. It also established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to enforce the NLRA.
Last month, as our members at AT&T Southeast were preparing to go on strike, Donald Trump laughed with notorious union buster Elon Musk about firing striking workers. Today that would be illegal, but if he’s elected President, Trump will have the plan and the power to take us back to a time when it wasn’t.
Donald Trump’s allies, including many people he appointed to serve in his administration, want to take us back to the days before the NLRA. Their dangerous, extremist agenda, detailed in a handbook known as Project 2025, calls for increasing corporate control over workers. They want to appoint NLRB members who will stop enforcing large parts of the NLRA, including the ban on company unions.
We are not going back.
We are not going back because we have the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris, a true champion for working people, who has a vision for the future where we all have more control over our own lives, not less. Where we have the freedom to join unions and to spend time caring for our families. Where healthcare and prescription drugs are affordable and our retirement plans are secure.
As Vice President, Kamala Harris has welcomed CWA members and retirees to be part of the discussion about policies that affect our lives. As a Senator, she was an original co-sponsor of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. As Attorney General for the State of California, she fought wage theft, forced unscrupulous big banks to restore millions to pension funds, and won over $230 million from pharmaceutical companies that were misleading patients.
By casting our votes for Senators and Members of Congress who will stand with us, we are declaring that we will not go back. We will elect representatives who will work to pass legislation that expands benefits that our seniors have earned, not strip away those benefits when they’re needed most. We deserve leaders who fight to solve problems instead of fighting one another.
Each of us can, and must, vote. But that, in itself, is not enough. We must also encourage others to learn about what is at stake and who is on their side. We must have conversations at work, make phone calls, send text messages, and knock on doors, spreading the word and making sure every union member’s voice is heard on election day.
This Labor Day, I am asking you to commit to, as Vice Presidential candidate and coach Tim Walz would say, “leave it all on the field.” Support our striking workers by visiting a picket line, signing our petition, or contributing to their strike fund. Work together with other CWA members and retirees by filling out the form at cwa.org/political to let us know that you want to volunteer to elect candidates who will move our country forward, not backward.
Let’s honor our past by fighting together for a more just future.
And see you soon on the picket line!
In Unity,
Claude Cummings Jr.
President
