As CWA convention begins, union watchdog sends mailers to members highlighting controversial presidential candidate
The Center for Union Facts, the union watchdog that is behind the website UnionFacts.com, is sending mailers to Communications Workers of America (CWA) members’ homes in multiple states raising awareness about an internal CWA report on Ed Mooney, a CWA Vice President who is also running to be the union’s next president.
Prior to union leaders gathering in St. Louis this week to elect new union leadership, Mooney became the subject of an internal union report by nearly a dozen local union leaders who investigated a number of allegations against Mooney.
“When around 1,000 local union delegates gather on Monday to cast ballots on behalf of 360,000 CWA members in the United States and Canada,” reported In These Times on Monday, “they will have a choice between three candidates — national Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens, who hails from the Pacific Media Workers Guild, a Bay Area CWA-affiliate; Claude Cummings Jr., a CWA Vice-President and civil right leader from Texas, and Vice-President Ed Mooney, a regional leader and longtime negotiator with Verizon from Philadelphia.”
In the nine-page report, which was published by the pro-union publication Payday Report in June, Mooney had allegedly created an environment that was described as “abusive, belittling, abrupt, sarcastic, insulting, hyper-aggressive, humiliating, unpredictable, contemptuous, hostile, demeaning, condescending, toxic, and disparaging.”
The mailers sent to members homes link back to UnionFacts.com, which features a post about Mooney with a link to the internal CWA report.
"It's too often the case that union scandals are swept under the rug without members ever being informed. CWA members deserve to know the scale and severity of allegations against Ed Mooney, and the union’s leader should uncover the truth of what's happening at the organization," a Center for Union Facts spokesperson stated.
While Mooney is a candidate for the CWA presidency, it is uncertain whether he has enough backing by CWA’s convention delegates who will be responsible for selecting the union’s next president to replace retiring CWA President Chris Shelton, or whether delegates will replace Shelton with his chosen successor Sara Steffens, or Claude Cummings Jr.
If Steffens is chosen, however, her election to the union’s presidency could be clouded by the fact that she, in her role as the national union’s secretary-treasurer, allegedly knew of Mooney’s behavior as far back as 2020. Yet, neither she, nor outgoing-President Chris Shelton apparently acted on that knowledge.