Communications Workers of America lose longtime organizer

ATLANTA - A longtime organizer and negotiator for the Communications Workers of America has died. Selina Burch Stanford was 75. <br> <br> Stanford joined the union at 18 shortly after becoming a switchboard operator in her hometown of Dublin in 1945. She later moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and began moving up the leadership ranks of the local union, eventually becoming the first woman to become local president in South Carolina. <br> <br> Stanford was a negotiator in Louisiana before being assigned to the CWA&#39;s regional headquarters in Atlanta. <br> <br> Stanford organized phone banks for the campaigns of President Jimmy Carter and Atlanta mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. She was twice a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. <br> <br> In 1976, Stanford was appointed by then-Governor George Busbee to the Georgia Board of Offender Rehabilitation. Stanford helped get women prisoners training as telephone operators after learning that women inmates -- unlike their male counterparts -- got no vocational training. <br> <br> Stanford&#39;s body was cremated. A memorial service was held Wednesday in Atlanta.

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