Philly labor leader accused of abusive behavior loses bid for international union president

Ed Mooney, the top official for the Communications Workers of America for four states including Pennsylvania, lost in a runoff election to CWA Vice President Claude Cummings Jr. for international union president late Monday night.

It was an election cycle that sparked debate over the future of one of the nation’s largest unions and raised questions about how labor holds its own accountable.

Over the last month, Mooney, 55, who is based in Philadelphia, has faced public accusations — some dating back more than 10 years — of abusive behavior toward members and staff. They include using homophobic and sexist slurs to address and describe employees, using racist stereotypes to employees and an elected official, screaming at employees and telling them they were “worthless” and “idiots,” and suggesting union officers resort to physical violence to settle a dispute.

Mooney denied many of the allegations.

“I’m a labor leader, not a saint,” Mooney said in an interview with The Inquirer. “I have said and done some things over the years that obviously I regret.”

He said that in the past, he had taken “corrective action” when people alerted him to his problematic behavior. And as more accusations surfaced, he attempted to contact the individuals involved but they had no interest in speaking with him. “So you have to move on,” he said.

He added that the timing of some of the allegations was “suspect.”

The CWA represents nearly 500,000 members. Mooney’s former turf, District 2-13, which covers Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia, includes 36,000 members, including journalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Mooney got his start with the union with CWA Local 13000, which represents Verizon workers.

The accusations were leveled by a group of current and former CWA leaders — dubbed the Emergency Mutual Respect Committee — who argued that Mooney was not fit to be president. Their initial report was based on internal and external complaints filed against Mooney, including an unfair-labor practice charge that was settled with the National Labor Relations Board, and interviews with seven current and former CWA employees.

“We want to be clear,” their June letter to CWA members read. “We are not saying our leaders need to be perfect. None of us are perfect. We are not against cussing. We are not demanding perfection. We are, however, demanding respect.”

The committee members said they wanted to know how Mooney’s behavior was allowed to continue for so many years.

In response to these accusations, outgoing CWA president Chris Shelton ordered an investigation. The team interviewed nearly two dozen current and former CWA staff and members and detailed its findings in a 12-page report made public by CWA. In his email sharing the report, Shelton said the timeline for the investigation was not ideal — with accusations coming just before the election — and encouraged CWA leaders to file complaints, so the union could investigate them with enough time.

Many described Mooney as a volatile, “Jekyll and Hyde”-type manager, at times kind and compassionate, other times insulting and demeaning, the investigation team’s report stated.

It also included allegations of Mooney describing an elected official who checked himself into the hospital for depression — which Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman did earlier this year — as a “crybaby” who needed to “man up,” and saying in a meeting to then-Councilmember Helen Gym, who is Korean American, that “ ‘of course’ she is a crazy lefty since aren’t all her people communists?”

Mooney denied both allegations to the investigation team.

He said he wished CWA’s new president well. “I’m sure the union will move forward, collectively together. As we should,” he said.