Larry Cohen Elected Executive Vice President

Delegates to the CWA convention elected Larry Cohen as executive vice president. Cohen, who has served as CWA organizing director and assistant to the president, won election over CWA District 7 Vice President Sue Pisha. He succeeds M.E. Nichols, who retired after serving in that position for 18 years.

Cohen will continue to have responsibility for CWA’s organizing programs, along with other areas.

As organizing director, Cohen has helped more than 130,000 workers gain CWA representation, including in the last year, 10,000 passenger service professionals at US Airways; 6,500 telephone workers at Southern New England Telephone and 2,500 editorial and commercial workers at Dow Jones operations. In 1997, he negotiated the Atlantic Alliance, an exchange and cooperative organizing program with British telecom unions, and has worked to build similar coalitions with unions worldwide.

In 1987, Cohen founded Jobs with Justice, a coalition of working families, community, religious and other groups that fights for fairness in cities across the country.

Originally a state worker in New Jersey, Cohen worked to build the State Worker Organizing Committee beginning in 1975, which brought CWA representation to some 40,000 state and county workers by 1981. He also served as a CWA representative, organizing director and assistant to the vice president for CWA’s District 1 before becoming organizing director and assistant to CWA President Morton Bahr in 1986.