Political Action Update - June 2023

Big win in New York! In the final days of the 2023 Legislative Session, the NYS Assembly and Senate passed the Protecting Worker Free Speech Rights Act (A.6604 Reyes/S.4982 Ramos), thanks in no small part to the thousands of emails sent by CWAers to our legislators and dozens of meetings held by members of CWA’s Legislative Political Action Team. 

The bill prevents employers from retaliating against employees who refuse to attend employer-sponsored meetings about personal political ideologies, religious beliefs, or opinions on labor unions, political parties, or civic groups. While this bill doesn’t prohibit an employer from holding a captive audience meeting, it does protect us by ensuring that workers are not punished for refusing to attend. CWA introduced this bill in 2019 and we’re delighted to see it pass as only the third state in the country.

We also passed two other priority bills in the State Senate:

• The One Week Unemployment Insurance Striking Workers bill reduces the waiting period for striking workers to receive unemployment to just one week, giving us more power to fight for good contracts.
• The Worker Retention in Call Center bill ensures that when a State contract for call center services changes hands, the workforce is protected.

Sadly those bills did not advance in the Assembly - but we will return next year to bring these important bills home.