On November 28, Senator Menendez visited the Alcatel-Lucent building in Murray Hill and met with employees there, many of whom are represented by the CWA.  We'd like to thank the Senator for the visit and especially thank him for his support of the CWA's efforts in Washington to extend and expand section 420 of the Tax Code.  This legislation is crucial for our retirees since it will allow companies to use assets in significantly over funded pension plans to fund retiree life insurance and to continue to use excess pension assets to finance retiree health care.  We really appreciate Senator Menendez's leadership in helping to make this happen.

As we progress through one of the worst years for public workers in recent history in this country, President Obama saw fit to push several Bush-era agreements through Congress to do business with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, countries where public workers have little to no ability to organize or improve their lives.

For Release October 4, 2011

Communications Workers of America Endorses Occupy Wall Street Movement

Washington, DC —The Communications Workers of America Executive Board has endorsed the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Occupy Wall Street activists joined CWA members demonstrating for quality jobs at Verizon and Verizon Wireless, and CWA members will join the demonstrations to focus public attention on the impact of Wall Street’s greed on ordinary Americans.  CWA is among four international unions to endorse the movement.

Today the White House sent Congress bills for Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea that, if passed, will take away middle-class American jobs and send them to these countries instead. While all three agreements are bad for middle-class America, the Columbian agreement is also extremely dangerous for union members there. 51 trade unionists were killed in Colombia last year, more than in the rest of the world combined. They are killed there for trying to improve the working conditions of the people this Free Trade Agreement will impact. The government has refused to demand that Colombia combat this problem and is pushing this agreement ahead.

This bill will hurt middle class Americans who are desperately trying to weather this recession and endanger the lives of countless Colombian workers. Call your representatives TODAY, toll-free: 877-851-3674 and tell them, "I am asking Representative/Senator XXXX to OPPOSE the Colombian Trade Agreement because Colombian lives and American jobs are at stake."

Click the photo above to download a printable PDF flyer for your workplace.

After you've called your representatives, click here to let CWA know how the call went.

Verizon Workers are not on strike anymore, but contract negotiations are still ongoing. Click on the image below to get a 2-page update of what's going on, and what's still at stake!

Did you miss last night's CWA National Union Hall Call? You missed out an a Verizon bargaining update, stories about organizing successes from across the country, and an update on what is being done to save the Postal Service from the Lettercarriers Union. Listen to the recording here!

In case you missed it, CWA State Director Hetty Rosenstein wrote a Labor Day post for bluejersey.com that turned some heads.  Here are some excerpts.  To see the whole article, click here.