To loosen the hold corporate money has on our country, we must build worker power, and to do that, we need the For the People Act. The bipartisan bill, which has been given the designation H.R. 1 as a sign of its importance, has passed the House of Representatives, and now the Senate must act.

For the last few weeks, we have been sharing information in the CWA eNewsletter about how the bill would make sure eligible voters could participate in elections and reduce the role of large donations in political campaigns.

In this series, we’ve highlighted how the For the People Act will give people more ways to vote, update the outdated voter registration process, protect voters against intimidation, and reduce the ability of corporations and extremely wealthy donors to control campaigns and our political process.

Tell your Senators that for the sake of our democracy and having fair elections in the future, they must act now to pass the For the People Act. Click here to send an email.

A piece authored by CWA Local 3181 President Richard R. Poulette of West Palm Beach, sounding the alarm on how Republicans and corporations are coming after workers' rights, was featured this week in the Palm Beach Post.

CWA members in Florida are fighting two bills that have been introduced in the Florida State Senate that would force public sector union members to re-confirm multiple times that they want to remain in the union, creating a costly and time-consuming paperwork mess for these essential workers and the local governments that employ them.

"It's important to remember that these laws weren't created by workers to make their own lives better – they were created by corporate special interests to weaken unions financially and to chip away at working peoples' solidarity with one another. We must reject them," Poulette wrote.

Bargaining Updates

Ocean County New Jersey Board of Social Services

CWA Local 1088 members at the Ocean County New Jersey Board of Social Services have ratified a new contract including a path to reduce long-standing wage disparities and safe working conditions for more than 200 members. The contract included no concessions from members and a workplace safety plan that included making vaccines available to workers and other health and safety protocols.

Pat Self, the newly-elected president of Local 1088, said, "I am so proud of what our small local was able to accomplish. We showed the power of unity and solidarity. We know we didn't do this alone and really appreciate all the support we received from the national staff and our community partners."

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Fortune Magazine

NewsGuild of New York-CWA Local 31003 members at Fortune magazine staged a 24-hour walkout on Tuesday to protest management's bad faith in first contract negotiations and to demand a fair, equitable collective bargaining agreement. Among the issues in contention are diversity, salary transparency, pay equity, and a performance evaluation system based on production quotas and traffic metrics that management implemented unilaterally, in violation of labor law.

"We came in thinking negotiations were going to be a back-and-forth, and that's not what we've found," said McKenna Moore, an audience editor and reporter and Fortune Union's first vice chair. "We're frankly done asking nicely...So today we're walking out and withholding our labor for 24 hours."

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Wall Street Journal

IAPE NewsGuild-CWA Local 1096 has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has refused to negotiate in good faith over pandemic benefits.

Members have spent considerable amounts on their work-from-home setups and are demanding more than a $150 stipend management gave them to work from home. Members have been working from home for a year and the union has repeatedly urged Dow Jones to do more to take care of employees during the pandemic.

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Organizing Updates

Hudson Youth Department

CWA Local 1120 members joined workers from the Hudson Youth Department to march to the Hudson, N.Y., City Hall and ask Mayor Kamal Johnson to support their fight to join CWA. While other City departments are members of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and other unions, and the Hudson Youth Department workers receive health insurance through CSEA, they are currently not represented by any union. All 22 Youth Center workers have signed on in support of joining CWA.

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade

NewsGuild members at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade held solidarity rallies on Friday, March 19, to deliver a message to their common owner, Block Communications, Inc.: "We Won't Back Down against their attempts to bust our unions, eliminate editorial independence, and destroy the Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette."