CWA Public Sector Workers Stand Up for the Right to Bargain
Margaret Cook, Vice President of CWA’s Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector (fourth from left), and Eyklipse Baca, member of CWA Local 7799 (second from left), joined Rep. Chris DeLuzio (left of Cook), AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler (right of Cook), AFSCME President Lee Saunders (right of Shuler) and other union activists at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
CWA members and leaders stood with lawmakers for the right of workers in public service to bargain earlier this week with the re-introduction of the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.
Eyklipse Baca, member of CWA Local 7799 and library assistant with the Denver Public Library, shared how she and her coworkers were using their collective voice to make the children’s library safer for workers and the public. “We had ceiling tiles that would fall at random in the children’s library. We all work to keep the library alive, so that is why it hurts when there are problems in the workplace that are fixable.” This hazard led Baca to organize with her coworkers to pass collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in Denver, Colo., because “union workplaces are safer workplaces and have higher wages.”
Baca joined Senator Mazie Hirono (Hawai’i), Representatives Donald Norcross (N.J.) and Chris Deluzio (Penn.), and Margaret Cook, Vice President of CWA’s Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector, for a press conference on Capitol Hill introducing the legislation.
"For years now, the rights of workers like nurses, librarians, educators, and all our essential public servants who dedicate themselves to our communities have been chipped away at, despite their dedication and selfless service to their communities,” said President Claude Cummings Jr. in a statement. “The Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act protects public sector workers' fundamental right to join together, bargain for fair pay, and stand up for decent working conditions."
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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.
