The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). the Canadian Labour Congress, and UNI Global Union.
History
In 1918 telephone operators organized under the Telephone Operators Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. While initially successful at organizing, the union was damaged by a 1923 strike and subsequent AT&T lockout. After AT&T installed company-controlled Employees' Committees, the Telephone Operators Department eventually disbanded. The CWA's roots lie in the 1938 reorganization of telephone workers into the National Federation of Telephone Workers after the Wagner Act outlawed such employees' committees or "company unions". NFTW was a federation of sovereign local independent unions that lacked authority over the affiliated local unions leaving it at a serious organizational disadvantage. After losing a strike with AT&T in 1947, the federation led by Joseph A. Beirne, reorganized as CWA, a truly national union, which affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1949. The union's Canadian members split away in 1972, forming the Communication Workers of Canada.
CWA has continued to expand into areas beyond traditional telephone service. In 1994 the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians merged with the CWA and became The Broadcasting and Cable Television Workers Sector of the CWA, NABET-CWA. Since 1997, it includes The Newspaper Guild (now renamed The NewsGuild-CWA). In 2004, the Association of Flight Attendants merged with CWA, and became formally known as the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, or AFA-CWA. In 2020 CWA launched the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) initiative to unionize tech, video game, and digital workers which has led to CWA becoming a major union for US and Canada tech worker organizing, including organizing all non-management workers at the Hawaii digital wireless carrier Mobi in 2022.
Contracts and strikes
Following is a partial list of contracts and strikes that the Communications Workers of America were involved in:
thumb|right|An [[inflatable rat used by the CWA during a 2009 rally against Verizon]]
thumb|Verizon members protesting at [[Occupy Wall Street in October 2011]]
{| class="wikitable"
!width=2%|Year !!width=20%|Company !!width=5%| Number of Members Affected !!width=1%| Duration of Strike !!width=40%| Notes
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|1955||Southern Bell Telephone Co.||50,000||72 days||Strike was in answer to management's effort to prohibit workers from striking. An expensive strike due to significant number of illegal firings and civil suits from Southern Bell. Out of 200 fired strikers, 150 were reinstated following legal action, with over $200,000 in back pay awarded. AT&T was forced to acknowledge the union.
|-
|1983||Bell System||600,000||22 days||1983 AT&T strike: Last contract with the Bell System before its breakup. Bell System sought givebacks. The contract resulted in Wage increases, employment security, pension, and health improvements.
|-
|1998||US West||34,000||15 days||Strike was due to mandatory overtime demands and forced pay-for-performance plan. Overtime caps were won.
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|2012||AT&T||20,000||2 days||AT&T West; California, Nevada, and AT&T East; Connecticut - Unfair labor practice strike during contract negotiations.
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|2016||Verizon||40,000||49 days
||Verizon strike of 2016: Issues include healthcare and pension costs, moving call center jobs overseas and temporary job relocations.
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|}