Provost's Lecture: Economic Crisis, Political Paralysis: What's the Working Class to Do?

Since his election in 2005 as president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Larry Cohen has transformed that union's budgeting system, giving districts and sectors greater flexibility while establishing clear accountability. He has built a highly respected and successful organizing program within CWA, and developed new strategies to help workers gain representation in a broad range of sectors. On the international scene, Cohen has expanded alliances with CWA's counterpart unions in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He began the lecture with a "shout out" to many of his CWA colleagues in attendance, all wearing red shirts on Thursdays in solidarity for Chief Union Steward Gerry Horgan, who was run over and killed by a "scab" as he walked a picket line while striking for health care benefits in Valhalla, New York in 1989. Cohen's recurrent theme was "what do we stand for as working people? Do we just join things that others lead or can we build things?" He urged the audience to not just be consumers but to have pride in themselves and their children. He also urged union workers to make health care, pension, bargaining rights, and the environment all priorities, and told the audience to think of class in terms of action, not structure, that income and the job itself doesn't define the term working class but rather what we do with that job and the solidarity we seek with the people with whom we work. We may speak different languages, for example, but we are still very much aware of who the bosses are and that their organization does not speak to the workers' needs. He said that one of the strategies of the right wing is to "suck workers in by stuff like racism." He cited international pro-union movements making great strides in certain Scandinavian countries, as well as in several South American nations and South Africa. "We can take strength from what's going on in the rest of the world," said Cohen.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Provost Lecture Series
• Stony Brook University
• Larry Cohen
• How Class Works