Happy New Year & Round Up 2024

New Year's message & 2024 Round Up from CWA District 1 VP Dennis Trainor

Happy New Year from CWA District 1! I want to take a moment to send you our warmest wishes for 2025, and take a look back at some of the many, many accomplishments and victories we had in 2024.

From strikes to historic first contracts to expanding broadband access and telecom jobs across New York; from big organizing victories and major steps forward in our fight for safe staffing in our healthcare facilities in New York; from securing legislation up and down the District that will improve our communities for working families, to helping elect several pro-worker candidates to public office - including one of our own - CWAers stepped up in huge ways in 2024.

Across the United States, the number of Union Petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board - that is, the number of groups of workers seeking a union election in their workplace - has gone up by 27% since 2023 and doubled since 2021 - and workers organizing to join CWA have been a big part of that, including workers at six Wells Fargo branches in New Jersey and Connecticut; GoNetSpeed workers in Depew, NY; workers at communications consulting firm BerlinRosen; and workers at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.

We mobilized and organized to support CWA bargaining committees negotiating new contracts - including several HUGE and historic first union contracts, including:

Graduate workers in Fordham University in New York (CWA Local 1104)

Workers at the National Audubon Society (CWA Local 1180)

Tech workers at ActBlue - a first-of-its-kind contract for tech workers in the country (CWA Local 1400)

NewsGuild-CWA members at the New York Times, the largest tech worker bargaining unit in the country

It wasn’t always easy - NewsGuild-CWA members at several workplaces went on strike, while Fordham graduate workers and National Audubon Society workers held practice pickets and prepared to strike before settling their contracts - but the strength of each member who stood together, came to the bargaining table, held signs, joined rallies, joined social media campaigns, signed petitions, sent emails, and more helped secure each new agreement and set standards for other workers throughout the country.

We held several big Lobby Days in New York and New Jersey to advocate for pro-worker legislation, and hundreds of members took action to help gain some big wins:

• Fully funding NJ State Worker pensions for the fourth year in a row
• Protecting NYS-contracted call center workers from layoffs in the event that the contract gets rebid
• Taxing corporations in New Jersey in order to raise revenue specifically earmarked for public transit, benefitting NJ's working families
• Securing provisions included in the New York Budget to protect local journalism, creating a payroll tax credit allowing news organizations to receive a 50% job creation tax credit on the first $50,000 of a local journalist’s salary
   

We also took some big steps in our fight for safe staffing in our healthcare centers in New York and New Jersey, including holding a Healthcare Legislative Training and several Safe Staffing rallies in New York.

It seems like every year brings with it the most critical election of our lifetimes, and 2024 was no different. Although we had some tough losses, CWAers gave their absolute all to fight for candidates for elected office who are committed to lifting up working families, and I couldn't be more proud of the hard work and dedication by hundreds of our members and retirees up and down the District.

We did have several big wins on the Federal and State level - including perhaps the most exciting victory of the election for CWA: we helped send one of our own, CWA Local 1123 President Chris Ryan, to the New York State Senate!

We’ve fought back against continued attacks on our union and our rights, particularly against union-busting organizations who have come after our public sector members in New Jersey, and beyond, with several Locals sending members to support our CWA family in Florida under attack from anti-union groups and legislators.

We also continued holding member trainings to strengthen skills in a variety of areas, including shop stewards trainings, a New Officers training for newly-elected Local officers, political action trainings, organizing and mobilization trainings, and more.

And to round out the year, we held the District 1 Leadership Conference in November, bringing together CWA D1 leaders from locals throughout New Jersey, New York, and New England to discuss the union’s business, hear from several great speakers and guests, hold workshops and trainings, and reconnect with one another after a busy year.

It’s been a year packed with incredible strength, solidarity, and progress, and none of it would’ve happened without all of your hard work.

I could go on, and on and on. CWAers never stop—especially in District 1. It is the honor and privilege of my life to be your Vice President and to work with this membership to continue building on these great accomplishments. Every CWA member should feel proud of what we’ve done this year.

There is still - as always - work to be done, and the year coming up is sure to bring new challenges with major contracts up for bargaining, several newly-organized bargaining units still fighting tooth-and-nail for their first contracts, organizing work ramping up, member trainings expanding—not to mention a new Presidential Administration and changes to State-level legislatures, particularly in New Jersey where a critical Governors election is taking place this year. We live in extraordinary times, and we know what we need to do: we have to keep organizing, we have to keep mobilizing, and we have to keep fighting alongside our sisters and brothers and siblings in this great labor movement across the country, because there is so much more that unites us than divides us. Truly, we are stronger together than as individuals.

But for now, we want to take a moment to celebrate all that we’ve achieved in 2024, and the incredible strength, unity, and dedication of our members. 

Happy New Year to all! Here’s to another big year in 2025!

Dennis G. Trainor
Vice President

CWA District 1