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About CWA-COPE
CWA-COPE is the political action committee for the working men and women of CWA, their families and retirees. CWA-COPE informs and mobilizes union families to encourage their participation in the political process. Through their political action committee, CWA men and women express their voice in politics and policy issues that affect their lives.
Funded by the voluntary contributions of CWA members, their family members and retirees, CWA-COPE provides financial contributions to worker-friendly candidates. CWA can only use voluntary dollars to contribute to an endorsed candidate for federal office. No union dues money of any kind can be given to a political candidate for federal office or national political party.
CWA-COPE also provides information to union families about the candidates and their positions on the issues affecting their lives. Decent health care, overtime pay, safe working conditions, family-friendly workplaces, retirement security, freedom to organize are among the concerns influenced by the political process. CWA-COPE endorses candidates regardless of political party who supports working families.
Working families can never match the contributions of Corporate America or the wealthy. Together we can combine our financial and voluntary resources to make a real difference in hundreds of key elections at the federal, state and local level. CWA-COPE offers workers the power to gain the attention of lawmakers to their agenda.
In a representative democracy, many voices speaking together are louder than a single voice talking alone. Just as union representation gives workers a voice on the job to improve their lives, CWA-COPE is the workers voice in politics to improve their communities and nation. CWA-COPE makes politics work for working families.
Those members unable to attend the General membership meeting may join the Million Member Mob by signing a registration card. Contact your Eboard member or the Local 51 office to get a card. All registration cards must be returned to the local office for forwarding.
Please show your solidarity and participate in this effort to show the new President and other congressional members our resolve to fight for the rights of all americans to form a union at their workplace. Please send me a picture and I will add it to our Million Members page. office@nabet51.org
Board Urges 'August Blitz' for Million Member Mobilization
July 18, 2008
CWA's Executive Board this week called on locals to make August "Blitz Month" for signing up members in the Million Member Mobilization for Employee Free Choice. The Board set a deadline of August 29 for locals to reach their goal of at least 15 percent member participation – and receive recognition in the CWA Newsletter.
By that date, CWA is looking to have reached a target of 65,000 support cards from members, or 80 percent of the union's total goal of 80,000 cards and photos to help show massive backing for our Employee Free Choice champions in Congress. CWA is planning additional, special honors for locals that have gone the extra mile to sign up at least 50 percent of members.
The Board also is urging locals and activists to organize viewing parties when Senator Barack Obama gives his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention the evening of August 28, and to use that occasion to enlist additional members, family and friends to sign up for the Mobilization to complete the August push.
Election of Obama as president and more pro-worker senators is necessary to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, igniting a resurgence in worker bargaining power and a new political movement, CWA President Larry Cohen stated in a letter to locals this week accompanying a video dramatizing the importance of the legislation.
He urged locals to use the video at membership meetings and other events, along with other resources for the Employee Free Choice campaign, including the comic book "Tom Riley's Nightmare," that can be downloaded at www.freechoicecwa.org.
"Nothing is more important to the future of CWA and the labor movement and to achieving our other key goals of universal health care, preserving and creating good jobs and insuring retirement security," Cohen noted.
Wal-Mart Is Telling Employees How to Vote
“I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote.”
—Wal-Mart customer service supervisor from Missouri
Tell Wal-Mart executives to stop abusing their power and intimidating their employees.
Today marks a new low for Wal-Mart. No, not low prices; low and dirty anti-worker tactics. We’ve known for years that Wal-Mart has violated labor and anti-discrimination laws and ruthlessly fought efforts by its workers to form unions.
And now, according to The Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is so intimidated by the very possibility of a unionized workforce that its supervisors have been holding mandatory meetings essentially telling employees to vote against Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama this November.
Wal-Mart is taking this outrageous step because the Democrats and Barack Obama have committed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for fair wages, health care, decent working conditions and a real voice on the job. All of America’s workers have the right to freely decide whom to vote for independent of employer pressure and intimidation.
Wal-Mart’s reported actions are just one piece of a large and well-organized effort by corporate America to continue exploiting America’s workers by preventing them from forming unions. With our economy struggling and workers’ wages stagnant, it is critical that we fight workplace intimidation and other heavy-handed corporate tactics. CEOs and Big Business already have too much influence in our political system and telling their employees whom to vote for is simply unacceptable.
Corporate giants like Wal-Mart have been suppressing workers’ wages and passing along health care costs to hardworking taxpayers like you for years. Wal-Mart executives are getting rich, while we’re being left behind. They understand what is at stake in this election, and so do we—a real voice at work for:
Fair pay;
Health care for all;
Equal treatment;
Safe workplaces; and
A secure retirement.
And Wal-Mart is ready to use its incredible corporate power as America’s largest private employer to corrupt the political system to safeguard its profits.
For information about the presidential candidates use the following link to CWA's info page. Lots of good reading if you haven't learned much about the two candidates.
