"I Can't Think About Pain. I Think About Helping People"

Trading lazy summer days for the chance to make a difference, CWA activists turned up the heat on lawmakers at “August Accountability” events from coast to coast.

Together with allies, they packed town hall meetings, protested outside politicians’ district offices, leafleted at airports, wrote letters and made phone calls throughout August and early September. And now they’re ready for more.

“I’m an activist because I see that it works, that it really does make a difference,” says Local 13500’s Karen Sparks. “I tell my friends, my family — not just my fellow CWA members — that it’s so important to take action and fight for what we want, because no one else is going to do it for us in the middle class.”

On Sept. 6, Sparks and other CWA members joined with the Penn Action coalition to try to talk to U.S. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), though the congressman never made himself available.

In Duluth, Minn., CWA members, retirees and other activists shamed Rep. Chip Cravaack (R) into holding a genuine town hall meeting. In late August, the crowd waited in the rain, shouted “Jobs Now” and demanded to be heard as Cravaack arrived at a restaurant to talk only to voters who paid for the privilege.

Local 7250’s Mona Meyer said: “For weeks, he ignored and refused to meet with his constituents. That didn’t stop the people. We wanted our voices heard. With the crowd and media focused on him, Cravaack agreed to hold a meeting at the city’s airport the next day.”

On the West Coast, CWA retiree activists in northern and southern California organized buses and vans full of retirees, union members and allies to travel to Sen. Diane Feinstein’s offices to press the Democrat to stand firm against Medicare cuts and privatization. They also rallied at U.S. House members’ district offices.

For Addie Brinkley of Local 9333’s Retired Members’ Chapter, the hours spent making arrangements was just one of countless activities she’s embraced in a lifetime of activism. “I was born in the South and I went through some rough years growing up. I know how hard it is for people to get help.”

Brinkley, 74, says she’s been an activist since going to work for the telephone company in New York City in 1955, but it really started even earlier. An African-American in the segregated South, she was also a child crippled by arthritis who spent a year in the hospital. Nuns let her help care for premature babies, and that alleviated some of her own pain.

“They taught me how to believe in myself and to fight, to not let anything stop me. “That’s still true today. I can’t think about pain. I think about helping people.”