About
FAQ
When was CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers formed?
Who are the Leaders of CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers?
Who We Are
CWA represents and organizes more than 130,000 public, healthcare and education workers across the country working hundreds of different kinds of jobs in state and local government, higher education and K-12, healthcare and more. We have members in state social services, nurses, public libraries, faculty and staff on campus, bus drivers and school nutrition workers, public safety workers, water workers, sanitation workers, EMS, and more. We believe in organizing all workers for power, fairness, and dignity.
History
CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector began as a historic organizing campaign in 1981 to unionize tens of thousands of state workers in New Jersey. From there, dozens of Locals were organized across the country, from Florida to Ohio to New Mexico, including a major affiliation in 1993 of the University Professional and Technical Employees in California, now CWA UPTE Local 9119. Over the next decades, CWA continued to grow and organize, with major concentrations in direct join Locals of public sector workers in the South and Southwest who are organizing for power in spite of being shut out of collective bargaining, like the Texas State Employees Union or United Campus Workers.
What is wall-to-wall?
Wall-to-wall unionism is when we organize as many job titles as possible in a single employer to win as much power as we can. Rather than carving up a single workplace among different job titles, we believe that by uniting across titles and kinds of work, our voice and our power are stronger, and we can fight and advocate for our members and the communities we serve better.
What is direct join unionism?
CWA is a pioneer of direct join unionism–organizing unions even when members don’t yet have the chance to formally collectively bargain. Across the country, millions of workers are left out and shut out of collective bargaining from histories of racism, broken labor law, and more. CWA believes these workers deserve organization and unions too–that’s why we organize them into our union anyway. From campus and public workers in the South and Southwest, to digital workers in some of the largest tech companies in the world, CWA has always jumped into the fight for workers rights and unionizing–because when we fight, we win.
Leadership
Margaret Cook is the CWA Vice-President for the Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Sector. A lifelong union member and a CWA member from Local 3821 in Tennessee, VP Cook was first elected to the international Executive Board in 2019 directly from the rank-and-file on a vision to boldly grow membership, expand member democracy and input, and grow our independent political power. She is the first Afro-Latina to serve on the CWA Board.
Thomas Walker is the Assistant to the Vice-President, helping to coordinate Sector programming, mobilization and organizing. He joined as a rank-and-file worker in 2005 building United Campus Workers Local 3821 in Tennessee. He has led union political mobilization, coalition work, and internal membership education. He was a member of CWA’s NextGen program, where he helped lead a statewide campaign to beat privatization. He was appointed by VP Cook in 2020.