A street in Queens, N.Y., has been co-named Priscilla Carrow Way in honor of a CWA Local 1180 member who worked at Elmhurst Hospital and died of COVID-19 last year.

Carrow dedicated her life to helping others. She served as a senior steward and in leadership positions for many community organizations.

"Priscilla was an essential worker who was a true hero," said CWA Local 1180 President and Northeast Region At-Large Executive Board Member Gloria Middleton. "She was responsible for distributing PPE to doctors and nurses in the beginning of the pandemic while not being able to use it for herself. She gave her life for the safety of others. I hope that having a street named in her honor will inspire people to learn more about her and continue to fight for justice in her name."

A street in Queens, N.Y, has been named in honor of CWA Local 1180 member Priscilla Carrow who worked at Elmhurst Hospital and died of COVID-19.

Join us on June 29 at 7:30 pm ET for a virtual fireside chat with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, CWA President Chris Shelton, and a group of CWA members from our Build Broadband Better project.

The discussion, which will be moderated by CWA District 4 Vice President Linda Hinton, will focus on how the FCC is addressing the pressing need for affordable, reliable broadband service, and what CWA members can do to help promote broadband access in their communities. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions.

RSVP here: cwa.org/fccchat.

Mapbox

This week, a majority of eligible workers at Mapbox, a mapping services and location cloud platform for computer software and app developers, announced they have formed the Mapbox Workers Union to represent all U.S. employees. The workers called on Mapbox management to voluntarily recognize their union. The campaign is part of the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA).

"Through our union, I know we can work to raise the standards for all workers at Mapbox, in the tech industry, and in the broader community," said Amisha Singla, senior data engineer at Mapbox.

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Lawrence, Kan., Public Schools

This week, the Lawrence Public Schools USD 497 Board of Education voted unanimously to recognize the Personnel Association of Lawrence-CWA (PAL-CWA) as the union for all classified staff in the school district. With this vote, 350 food service workers, administrative assistants, custodians, maintenance and facilities workers, and musical accompanists will have the chance to join PAL-CWA.

This comes almost a year after approximately 300 instructional classified staff in the school district won recognition. PAL-CWA Chair Hannah Allison asked the board to vote in favor of recognizing the remaining classified workers in the district as part of the union. "Our union is really important to us because we know that the day-to-day working conditions that we work in, those are also our students' learning conditions," Allison said.

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The Atlantic

Last week, editorial employees at The Atlantic announced they have formed The Atlantic Union and will be affiliated with NewsGuild of New York, TNG-CWA Local 31003. Management of the magazine has agreed to voluntarily recognize their union.

The unit will include writers, editors, and the art team, as well as workers on the copy desk, fact-checking, podcasts, and experimental storytelling teams. In their mission statement, the workers said they organized their union in order to "create a more equitable and diverse workplace that provides fair compensation and meaningful support to its workers, particularly its junior staff."

On Tuesday, Rep. Susan Wild (D-Penn.) reintroduced the Philippine Human Rights Act. The Act suspends security assistance to the Philippines until President Rodrigo Duterte's regime ends its brutal campaign targeting labor leaders and activists.

During a press event announcing the reintroduction, Rep. Wild noted that CWA members and call center workers in the Philippines have a long history of working toward their common goals, including during the 2016 Verizon strike when Filipino workers who handled Verizon calls showed their support with pickets and workplace actions. "This is about solidarity," Rep. Wild said, "It's about standing up for one another and understanding that protecting labor rights and all human rights here at home requires supporting those same rights abroad."

CWA District 7 Vice President Brenda Roberts, who chairs CWA's Customer Service Program, also spoke at the event. "It is clear the attacks on free speech and democracy are on the rise in the Philippines. We cannot stand idly by while Duterte kills labor activists one by one.

"We must condemn it, and do every single thing within our power to stop it. And that starts with legislation like the Philippine Human Rights Act."