The Communications Workers of America wants to make sure that the nation’s biggest employers actually give working families the average $4,000 wage increases that the Trump administration says will result from cutting the corporate tax rate.

Urging CEOs to "cut through the rhetoric," CWA President Chris Shelton said that if the cuts proposed in the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” go into effect, corporations should guarantee that working people will receive the raises the administration promised and ensure that the bill’s treatment of overseas profits will not result in domestic job loss.

Yesterday, Shelton sent individual letters to CEOs of some of the largest corporations where CWA members work including Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, American Airlines, General Electric, NBC Universal and ABC Entertainment asking them to sign a memorandum of agreement as part of the current contracts with CWA now in force. "Together, through collective bargaining, we can ensure promises about wages and jobs are kept," Shelton wrote.

President Trump and his economic advisers have been very clear that working families will receive these wage increases. Speaking in Pennsylvania in October, President Trump said the tax cuts “would likely give the typical American household around a $4,000 pay raise.”

Trump's claim appears to come from a Council of Economic Advisors report that states, “Reducing the statutory federal corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent would...increase average household income in the United States by, very conservatively, $4,000 annually. The increases recur each year, and the estimated total value of corporate tax reform for the average U.S. household is therefore substantially higher than $4,000,” as much as $9,000.

Many economists, however, are skeptical, and predict that corporations will use the money from the tax cuts to buy back stock or issue dividends. That's why CWA members are asking employers to “show us the money” and to make sure working people receive the wage increases they’ve been promised.

Links to Letters

Verizon

AT&T

NBC Universal

Frontier

General Electric

ABC Entertainment

CenturyLink

American Airlines

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CWA represents 700,000 working men and women in telecommunications, customer service, media, airlines, public service and manufacturing.