Madelyn Elder, Oregon Labor Leader, Named to Executive Board of Communications Workers of America

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-19-2007/0004685946&EDATE=

PORTLAND, OR, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Union leader Madelyn Elder has been named to the international executive board of the Communications Workers of America.

Elder has served as president since 2000 of CWA Local 7901 representing more than 1,500 members primarily in communications. She is one of 23 board members setting policy and directing programs for the union. CWA represents 700,000 members in telecommunications, media, the public sector, health care, education, manufacturing and airlines across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Elder and three other new CWA Executive Board members were sworn in Oct. 17. Their positions, approved by delegates to the union's annual convention in July, were created to increase diversity in CWA's leadership by bringing local officers and activists on board.

Active in labor and politics, Elder has long worked with Jobs with Justice and has served on various campaigns, including treasurer for the first two campaigns of state Representative (and CWA member) Diane Rosenbaum of Portland. She was also treasurer of the campaign for a successful initiative to raise Oregon's minimum wage in 1998.

Elder was originally a CWA member while attending college in Michigan and working at a small answering service from 1973-76. In 1977, she began work as a Pacific Northwest Bell operator in Seattle and became a shop steward in her local union within six months. After a consent decree placed hundreds of Bell company women in outside plant jobs, she became a cable splicer. As a shop steward and chief steward, she helped lead job actions over manhole safety conditions.

She continued to work on safety issues, particularly ergonomic issues for inside and outside plant workers after moving to Portland. She was the head of an ergonomics grant project for CWA, funded by Oregon OSHA in the early 1990s. Before being elected president of Local 7901, she served as secretary-treasurer from 1994-99.

For More Information: Jeff Miller or Candice Johnson, CWA Communications 202-434-1168, and [e-mail] and [e-mail]