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CWA Re-Elects Cohen as President, Picks Rechenbach as Sec.-Treas. |
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Delegates to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) convention in Las Vegas re-elected Larry Cohen as president of the union and elected two new officers.
Jeff Rechenbach, who served as CWA’s executive vice president for the past three years, is the union’s new secretary-treasurer. He succeeds Barbara Easterling, who has retired. Delegates also elected Annie Hill, a vice president for CWA District 7, as executive vice president to succeed Rechenbach.
Rechenbach has been a leader in the union since 1973, when he was elected president of Local 4309 in Cleveland at age 19. He joined the CWA staff in 1981, and in 1994 became CWA’s vice president for District 4, which includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. He was elected executive vice president in 2005.
Hill joined CWA in 1976 as an outside technician for Pacific Northwest Bell and was elected to two terms as president of Local 7904 in Salem, Ore. She joined the district staff in Minneapolis in 1990, serving as administrative assistant and assistant to the vice president. In January 2005, she was appointed vice president of District 7, which covers 14 states in the Midwest and West, and elected to a full term in August 2005.
Easterling is the first woman to serve as CWA’s secretary-treasurer, being elected in 1992. In 1995, she took a leave of absence to serve as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, becoming the federation’s first female officer.
The convention delegates also focused on the upcoming presidential election by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama. Cohen says the union will mobilize its members across the country, especially those in key battleground states, by educating them about Obama’s stances on issues that matter to working families:
In these states, we will unite working families and take our message to members in the workplace like never before. With President Obama, we can reform health care, we can win the Employee Free Choice Act and bring about real, positive change for working families in our country.
In addition, several industry sector presidents were elected. Jim Clark was re-elected president of IUE-CWA, and John Clark was re-elected president of NABET-CWA. Bernie Lunzer was elected president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA by a sector referendum tallied in May, and Patricia Friend earlier had been re-elected president of the Flight Attendants-CWA under that union’s bylaws.
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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
2 Comments
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How is two white guys at the top applies to the diversity resolution?
Barbra Easterling
Let us sing today our praises for Barbra Easterling, a great woman of
labors,
She learned about unions in Akron Ohio from her family and her
neighbors.
A coal miner*s daughter, who broke the glass ceiling at the house
of labor,
And as a telephone operator at Ohio Bell, who never did AT&T any
favor.
She served her fellow members as a steward and officer of her CWA
local 4302
Up the ranks she climbed to staff at District 4 and then to the
National Union Too.
She blazed a trail for women as she became the first woman AFL-CIO
officer ever,
And The Committee on Executive Board Diversity will continue that
great endeavor.
She is part of the fight for workplace justice; she*s a modern day
*Mother Jones*,
She is still in *The Stewards Army* retired or not she*ll move
her weary bones,
Her thoughts and prayers will be with us as we walk every picket
line.
She helped build CWA and make it grow, so her name is on that sign.
She not only served her Union but her home state of Ohio as its Labor
Division Chief.
As President of Women*s Committee for Union Network she has turned
over a new leaf.
We praise her efforts for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatrics AID*s
Foundation,
And her tireless work for United Way, and to end homelessness in our
Nation.
I am sure she will not rest; she will be in the fight for Worker*s
and Women*s rights,
We will hear her shouts of joy when we have a Woman President on
election night.
She will be there in spirit when a woman is the President of the CWA
.
At the front of the fight for women workers, that*s just our
Barbra*s way.
David Hurlburt
650-355-8102
dghurlb@pacbell.net