CWA Leads Rally to Secure Fair Social Security Benefits for Public Service Workers

 
CWA PHEW Vice President Margaret Cook addresses public service workers and supporters at a rally on Capitol Hill.

This week, CWA cosponsored a rally of union members and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to advocate for fairness in Social Security for public service workers. Under current law, millions of public service workers see their retirements unfairly slashed and reduced after lifetimes of serving their communities because of unfair offsets created by the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). A bill currently before the Senate, the Social Security Fairness Act, would fix the GPO-WEP provisions and restore the promise of a fair retirement for dedicated public service workers.

CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers (PHEW) Vice President Margaret Cook shared stories of CWA members impacted by this unjust policy. “I think about regular folks who have dedicated their lives through careers of service—folks like CWA member and Columbus, Ohio, retiree Susan, who got up and went to work every day for decades to help with nutritional needs for children in her city and serve those in real need. Susan didn’t ask for much from that work, but what she counted on was being able to retire with dignity and security in the community she’d worked so hard to strengthen.”

CWA was joined by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and union leaders and activists from AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, NARFE, NEA, SEIU, AFGE, IAFF, and others. CWA represents more than 130,000 public service workers across the country who have dedicated their careers to serving their communities.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.