Local 300-CGSU Fights Suspension, Prevents Deportation of Member

“UE Local 300-Cornell Graduate Students United (CGSU-UE), which represents graduate workers at Cornell University, are currently fighting against the unjust discipline of one of our members,” writes Local 300 leader Marguerite Pacheco. “On September 23, Cornell’s administration suspended international graduate worker Momodou Taal, citing his alleged participation in protest activity.

“This suspension fired Taal from his job and de-enrolled him as a student. He would have had to leave the country immediately once the University notified the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of their choice to de-enroll him.” However, action by Local 300 and its sibling graduate worker locals this week convinced Cornell not to de-enroll Taal.

Local 1107 Members March on Boss to Protest Unjust Termination

On Monday, September 16, UE Local 1107 members at Freudenberg marched on the boss during management's pre-shift meeting to protest the unjust termination of Jackie Beccera. Members voted overwhelmingly to arbitrate Beccera’s termination at the membership meeting the day before. They also voted to use tools brought back from a recent subregion education event to mobilize the membership, instead of just waiting on the painfully slow arbitration process.

Local 203 Members Win Historic Raises, Pay Equality, and More

After five months of negotiations, UE Local 203, which represents grocery workers at two City Market co-op locations in Burlington, VT, won a new contract that guarantees $2 increases in wages to every member and $2.25 increases for a quarter of membership. They also won a five percent wage increase for all workers in year two of the contract. Overall, the contract is worth 2.7 million dollars, the largest financial gains in the history of the local.

Local 222 Settles Contracts at Library, Board of Education

Two sublocals of UE Local 222, a statewide amalgamated public-sector local in Connecticut, settled new contracts this fall. Librarians in Rocky Hill, members of Sublocal 39, ratified a new contract in late August which provides workers with immediate wage increases of between 4 and 11.9 percent. At the Woodbridge Board of Education, the custodians, administrative assistants and food service workers of Sublocal 80 ratified a new contract at the end of September which will increase 9.6 percent over the three years of the contract. Read more »

Shop Struggles Star at Western Region

UE’s Western Region met on September 28 and 29 just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. During shop reports, leaders of many locals spoke about successful efforts to enforce their contracts. On a more bittersweet note, the council meeting also heard reports from two UE locals who are facing the closure of their facilities. Read more »

First UE Women’s Leadership Program A Success

The first UE Women’s Leadership Program, designed to promote the leadership of women and gender non-conforming members of the union, wrapped up in September. According to Staff Coordinator Kim Lawson, who helped design and facilitate the program, the sessions aimed to give participants a mixture of “hard skills” but also provide a space to talk about the obstacles and barriers that women face and why they don't become leaders in the union. Read more »

Hillbillies Need No Elegy: The Last Fight of Locals 718 and 777

“Unfortunately, the closure of the Lancaster Cereal Facility (recently Post Consumer Brands, formerly Treehouse, formerly ConAgra, formerly Ralston, formerly General Mills) is not unique in small town America.,” writes UE Field Organizer Heather Hillenbrand. “The 160 UE members of Locals 718 and 777 likely won’t be featured in any books, but they deserve to have their story told.” Read more »

Member-Led Trainings at OH-IN-KY Subregional Event

On September 27, twelve members from UE Locals 704, 728, 741, 777 and 799 participated in the 2024 Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky subregional educational event. This training took a new format, with member-leaders Janet Gray, business agent of Local 618 and a participant in the recent UE Women’s Leadership Program, and Kevin White, president of Local 728, presenting the majority of the materials and leading roundtable discussions about solving workplace and organizational issues based on their own experiences. Read more »

Local 704 Members Call for Action Around Train Derailment

On September 24, a train derailment in Cleves, Ohio caused yet another toxic chemical spill. Members of UE Local 704, who live and work within miles of the spill, are concerned about the impacts and the response from both the local governments and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Read more »

UE Officers: Israeli Strikes on Lebanon Are a Further Escalation — U.S. Must End Military Aid Now

On September 24, UE’s officers released a statement noting that “Israel’s recent strikes on Lebanon, which have killed hundreds of people including women, children, and paramedics, are exactly the type of regional escalation of hostilities that we predicted would happen without a ceasefire in Gaza. ... We reiterate our call that President Biden immediately cut off all military aid to Israel, as the only mechanism available to get Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire, before the conflict escalates even further.” Read the full statement »

FEATURE

“Uphold UE Policies; Fight Company Unionism”: The 1949 UE Convention

Seventy-five years ago, what was perhaps the most dramatic national convention in UE history opened in Cleveland. In the months leading up to the convention, the corporate and government forces that sought to wipe out UE’s brand of militant, rank-and-file unionism were gathering steam. The UAW and the Steelworkers had been taking advantage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, to raid UE shops. And within the union, a faction that wanted to abandon UE’s principles of aggressive struggle, rank-and-file control, political independence, international solidarity, and uniting all workers were preparing to try to wrest control of the union at the upcoming convention by accusing the union of being “communist-dominated.” Read more »

Grant Awarded to Complete Preservation of “Solidarity” Mural from UE Hall

On October 10, the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) announced they had received funding to support the preservation of the iconic “Solidarity” mural from the old UE hall in Chicago. The $450,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Mellon) will allow preservation experts Parma Conservation, who removed the mural section by section last spring after UE sold the building, to complete the process of restoring and relocating the mural. The work is expected to be completed at the end of 2025. Read more »

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