CWU affiliates to Momentum

For immediate release

23rd August 2017

CWU affiliates to Momentum

The Communication Workers Union announced today that its democratically elected National Executive Council has voted to formally affiliate to Momentum.

Momentum, which emerged out of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign in 2015, organises around 150 local groups of Labour Party activists around the country, has over 200,000 registered supporters, and has recently adopted a new constitution enabling trade unions to formally affiliate to it.

Dave Ward, CWU General Secretary, said: “the general election showed the value of Momentum as part of the wider labour movement and it has established itself as a major political force in the UK. It has a key role to play in securing a transformative Labour government and we look forward to working with Momentum to help deliver this at the earliest opportunity.”

“In the election Momentum helped reach out to new groups of voters and worked to mobilise, train and organise thousands of activists for Labour’s campaign. The CWU will now be joining Momentum in its campaign to unseat prominent Conservative MPs and seeking to work with Momentum to re-assert trade union values in society today.”

-Ends-

Notes to editors:

• The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is the biggest trade union in the communications industry with 190,000 members in post, telecoms, mobile and financial services companies including Royal Mail Group, Post Office, BT Group, EE, O2 and Santander.
• The CWU is the fifth largest affiliated trade union to the Labour Party.
• During the election Momentum put on training for 3,000 activists, created the website mynearestmarginal.com which had over 100,000 unique visits and organised over 50 campaign weekends in marginal constituencies. Online, one in three Facebook users in the UK watched a Momentum video during the election.

For interview / further comment please contact:

CWU Press Office: 020 8971 7267 / 07793 314249 / pressofficer@cwu.org