CWAers Map Out Our Agenda to Fight for Stronger Communities in 2026

Over the past several weeks, dozens of CWA members from locals throughout New Jersey and New York have come together over several sessions to map out our goals for the next several months, and how we plan to win for working families on the legislative and electoral fields this year. Legislative & Political Action Team members discussed some of the biggest issues facing working people right now like skyrocketing healthcare costs, Artificial Intelligence in the workplace, and how our tax dollars are being spent — and while they’re tough and sometimes divisive subjects, our central, unifying mission is to fight for a country where working people can afford to live, raise families, and retire with dignity, and where our public systems are strong enough to truly serve our communities.

While those at the top try to divide and distract us, we’re focused on building a stronger union and stronger communities — not just defending what we have, but fighting for more.

Our Legislative & Political Action Goals for 2026:

Alongside organizing new members and winning strong contracts, our Legislative & Political Action Team is working to build an economy that works for all of us by:

• Making greedy corporations do their part to strengthen our communities while keeping taxes low for working families, allowing our cities and states to fund the programs people rely on, strengthen public services like healthcare and child care, and ensure good union jobs aren’t hollowed out or handed over to privatization schemes.
• Ensuring that workers come first in an age of rapidly changing technology, regulating surveillance and AI, preventing burnout through safe staffing and limits on mandatory overtime, and making sure innovation strengthens — not replaces — working people.
• Strong public oversight, whether that’s keeping regulating broadband work as an essential piece of infrastructure or stopping privatization efforts that undermine our public services and the workers that administer them.
• Ensuring that our retirement reflects the decades of hard work we’ve put in for public employees — fixing broken pension systems like Tier 6 in New York City, ensuring full pension payments in New Jersey, and protecting healthcare benefits across the District, including fixing the State Health Benefits Plan for Local Government employees in New Jersey.