With well over 600,000 members, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), an AFL-CIO affiliate, is—by far and away--the largest communications and media labor union in the U.S. So, when outgoing (after a decade at the helm of the union) CWA President Larry Cohen announced over the past few hours that he’s going to work as a volunteer in the Sanders campaign, in large part due to Hillary “Clinton’s equivocation on granting President Barack Obama so-called fast-track authority on his mammoth trade deal,” it’s pretty damn newsworthy. And, I’m sure many of CWA’s members will be reporting upon this story, as well.
Will one person’s public pronunciations affect the CWA’s formal support of any particular candidate in the 2016 presidential election? That remains to be seen. But, Cohen’s announcement, late last night, certainly won’t hurt Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ efforts to obtain the group’s endorsement.
Labor Leader Joins Bernie Sanders' Campaign, Citing Clinton's 'Silence' On Fast Track
Dave Jamieson
Huffington Post
07/01/2015 12:01 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- The longtime leader of one of the country’s most powerful labor unions is joining the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and he says presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton made it an easy call…
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… “I did everything I knew how to do to get Clinton to speak out on fast track, and she wouldn’t,” said [Larry] Cohen, whose 10 years leading CWA came to an end in June. "We begged her to speak out.
“There was a million ways she could have done it. ... Why was she silent on this?"…
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…Cohen's enlistment no doubt gives another shot in the arm to the Sanders campaign, while also suggesting a rift between Clinton and the progressive base. While at the helm of CWA, Cohen earned a reputation for pressuring Democrats into more progressive positions. He helped lead a coalition of left-leaning groups that was instrumental in bringing about Senate rules reform, paving the way for many of Obama's nominees to be confirmed.
"The key is him being the progressive candidate," Cohen said of Sanders. "You build the movement -- you don't just inherit it from labor or any other tent."
Cohen said Clinton's hesitation on fast track "won't be forgotten" anytime soon.
"We're not a rubber stamp for the Democratic Party," Cohen said of organized labor, "and certainly not for corporate Democrats."…
In addition to including many employees of our nation’s major telephone companies, CWA’s affiliates include: Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) (membership: 55,000+); International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers (IUE-CWA) (45,000+); The Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA) (34,000+); National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) (10,000+); National Coalition of Public Safety Officers (NCPSO-CWA) (16,000+); CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers (140,000+); Printing, Publishing and Media Workers Sector (PPMWS-CWA) (8,000+); The Transport Workers Union of America (120,000+); and, last but not least, the Human Rights Watch support staff.
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