Guild staffers were among a packed crowd in CWA’s lobby conference room Thursday night for a crash course in collective action, one of hundreds of meetings nationwide dubbed “spring training for the 99 percent.”

The inspiring, high-energy programs are being held nationwide, and many CWA and Guild members have attended. Click here to find out where one is happening near you, or how you can host one.

In Washington on Thursday, what’s normally a seven-hour training session was compressed into three powerful hours that included break-out groups, engaging and informative videos and personal stories, from inspiring to funny to tragic.

Using the recent announcement that T-Mobile would slash 3,000 American jobs, CWA President Larry Cohen choked back tears as he described how the fight for fairness, as it’s been waged in recent years, isn’t working -- that the gap between rich and poor has grown so wide and the political power of corporations has grown so large that the 1 percent is simply bulldozing the 99 percent.

“I’m tired, I’m angry, I’m distressed from seeing how hard our members fight these battles only to go backwards,” Cohen said. “The only way we can fight this is together.”

By “together” he was speaking to a room that didn’t just include CWA staffers. There were other union members, Sierra Club and Occupy activists and ordinary, interested citizens.

Breaking the ice early on, participants gathered in groups of four and told each other their stories, what made them part of the “99 percent.” One woman described how she was happy to turn 67: For the first time in her life, through Medicare, she had health insurance.  A recent college graduate and diabetic worries how she’ll pay for her insulin when she can no longer be on her parents’ insurance.

Trainers included Ben Dalgetty of AFA-CWA, who opened by telling a story of his own. He spoke of his Uncle Steve, who had run a construction company, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and seemed to be living the American Dream. A year ago, drowning in debt, devastated by the financial collapse, he went into his backyard, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Now Dalgetty is determined to help build a people’s movement that will fight back – and win—against the “greed, the malfeasance” that killed his uncle and is hurting tens of millions of other Americans.

Dalgetty used the Montgomery bus boycott that began in 1955 as an example of how well planned, highly disciplined, direct, non-violent action can bring change. African-American groups, churches, unions and other activists developed a plan, had ride shares ready to go and kept the boycott going for 381 days, until the Supreme Court ruled that the segregated buses were unconstitutional.

“They had their vision, they had their goal, they had their strategy and they had their tactics,” he said. “It wasn’t just one person’s vision. It was the vision of the whole community.”

The Guild's Melissa Nelson and Bruce Nelson, left side, take part in a break-out group.

The Guild's Tim Schick in another break-out group, one comprising CWA members wearing red, as is tradition on Thursdays.