By Myra Kreiman
September 2017 – The current political environment endangers our union, the labor movement and all that our nation has done during the last 150 years to protect workers and their families.
We need every NewsGuild-CWA member, active and retired, to recognize what is at stake. And that is precisely where the CWA Retired Members Council (RMC) is an invaluable resource. The RMC enables retirees to continue to act on the passion that made us leaders in the first place — working on behalf of families to make all our lives better.
Retiring from work doesn’t mean retiring from our union, because the union marches on. RMC members support efforts to improve and protect our retirement benefits just as active members are fighting now to safeguard their future.
By getting active, you will be helping those still in the workplace as you mobilize with your sisters and brothers on picket lines, at rallies and wherever else the union needs you.
Currently, 90 of 214 contracts at Guild shops in the U.S. are being negotiated, including some for recently organized units, such as the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Lakeland Ledger. In Canada, there are 20 open contracts out of 57.
And we retirees can help!
Many activists today moan and groan about the loss of valued leaders in our locals during the past dozen years or so. But, by and large, those leaders are not lost — or they don’t have to be.
Reach out to them. It takes just five members to start a chapter.
To paraphrase a statement by Guild founder Heywood Broun: “My local needs a Retired Members Council chapter, and today I think I’m going to go about setting one up.”
Make those words your own.
By Myra Kreima