CWAers Attend the 2023 CWA/USW Health, Safety, and Environment Conference in Record Numbers

Over 100 CWAers gathered at the 2023 CWA/United Steel Workers Health, Safety, and Environment Conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., last week. The record number of CWA attendees, many of them first-time participants in the conference, came from every CWA District and multiple sectors. The group included the most diverse range of occupations ever represented by CWA members at this conference, with workers from airlines, healthcare, public sector, manufacturing, and telecommunications.

There were over 130 unique workshops offered throughout the week and multiple plenary sessions with the goal of developing strategies to fight for and improve everyday working conditions. CWA health and safety leads facilitated and co-facilitated workshops focused on improving workplace safety. CWAers also showcased our union’s successful efforts in New York to win safe staffing for healthcare workers.

In addition, there was a strong show of support for striking CWA members at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, including a CWA table, with materials and information about the strike, staffed by strikers. The CWA delegation heard from a striking Newsguild-CWA member and participated in a nighttime picket line at the Post-Gazette distribution center.

The attendees who took part in the picket witnessed firsthand the potential risks of such workplace actions when local police came to break up the picket. “We were walking the line and the police came and broke our line and assaulted us, pushed me around, knocked me down on the ground,” said Kristen Affrime, CWA Local 1038, who was on the picket line and spoke to Channel 11 news. Affrime also appeared on “Today in Pittsburgh Labor,” a radio show launched by striking CWA workers at the Post-Gazette, and spoke more about her experience. You can listen to her interview here.