April 13, 2007 (from national website) CWA has launched the first of a series of free online, interactive training courses as part of the effort to build a Stewards Army of activists for grassroots action on key issues and campaigns.
Developed by CWA/NETT’s professional trainers, the course is a user friendly and self-paced look at “The Changing Telecom Industry and Why Speed Matters.” (It generally takes about 30 minutes to click through and answer short quizzes at the end of each topic, does require creating username and password).
Log in today and check out the course at www.cwanett.org.
Slides with text and animated graphics describe the major forces that are transforming the telecom world and changing job patterns for the future. These include the move away from wire line telecom with the emergence of wireless, the growth of Voice over Internet Protocol and competition from cable providers that currently have an edge with “triple play” services.
Real high – speed Internet networks are the key to the survival of growth of CWA’s employers and the source of job opportunity for our telecom members. But there are many political and policy roadblocks to overcome in transforming essentially a 20th Century phone network in to a communications system for the 21st Century
Learn how CWA is mounting an ambitious Speed Matters campaign for job and economic growth and how CWA Stewards Army activists can play a key role in this fight for our job future.
As President Larry Cohen says in the introduction to the course, “CWA has long recognized that stewards are the heartbeat and the strength of our unions.” Join us as a Stewards Army activist as we ignite a new movement to change America’s priorities.
Those who join won’t all be shop stewards in the traditional sense of handling grievances and enforcing contracts at the job site – a critically important job that is done by thousands of CWA stewards in countless locations.
The Stewards Army is really about “stewardship” in a broader sense: stewardship to strengthen workers’ bargaining and organizing rights and advocate for our other major goals – jobs, health care, and retirement security.
The goal is to join CWA’s 50,000 with another 500,000 or more activist from other major unions to create a powerful force to change the priorities of the country and refocus on an agenda for working families.
The Stewards Army will include both active union members and retirees. Its action program will sometimes be directed at a CWA employer or workplace, and other times will be more broadly focused on a CWA industry goal or even a national issue such as health care. Actions can range from sending an e-mail message to participating in rallies, meeting with elected officials and mobilizing thousands for mass action.
We need to reorient America’s priorities – and to do that we need to ignite a movement. Join us!