Coordinated Bargaining Wins Historic Contracts, Ends Union Busting for Locals 228 and 728
On November 3, 2025, following two months of coordinated bargaining, members of UE Locals 228 and 728 ratified new 11-month agreements. The locals collectively represent more than 850 workers who process visa petitions and provide petitioner support at the Department of State’s National Visa Center in Portsmouth, NH and the Kentucky Consular Center in Williamsburg, KY, respectively. They are sister locations whose members are employed by federal contractor LDRM under the State Department’s Visa Support Services contract. Read more on ueunion.org »
UNM Grad Workers Ratify Their Second Contract
UE Local 1466-United Grad Workers (UGW) at the University of New Mexico ratified their second contract on October 27 after seven months at the negotiation table. Graduate workers at the University of New Mexico fought long and hard to secure six percent raises to minimums and across the board for their bargaining unit, the highest wages won across university union negotiations this year. Read more on ueunion.org »
Local 896-COGS Successfully Negotiates Wages, Defends Academic Freedom
Negotiating a wage increase with an employer is one of the most common things that most union locals do. But since an anti-union law went into effect eight years ago, UE Local 896-Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, which represents 2,000 graduate workers at the University of Iowa, has been forced to simply accept the maximum arbitration award mandated by that law — as has every other union which bargains with the state’s Board of Regents, which governs the Iowa’s higher education system. Read more on ueunion.org »
New Three-Year Pact for New Jersey Library Workers
Passaic Library workers, members of amalgamated UE Local 155, won four percent wage increases in each year of their new three-year contract. This was the first multi-year contract in many years; for some time, the local has been negotiating one-year extensions due to issues with the library’s finances. In addition to the wage increases, which are higher than they have historically received, the workers won an extra early closure day (with pay) and increased the travel reimbursements. Read more »
Rising Repression Aims to Increase Power and Wealth of the Rich and Corporations
STATEMENT OF THE OFFICERS - The Gilded Age robber baron Jay Gould is said to have bragged, “I can hire half of the working class to shoot the other half.” The robber barons of our own age, the billionaires who run the Trump administration, are increasingly embracing violence and repression as they seek to drive more money and power into their own hands and silence any criticism of their exploitation. Read more »
Local 1421 Bargains New Contract
Members of Local 1421 who work at the Stepan Company ratified a new three year contract on November 3. The local won a wage increase of 10.5 percent over the life of the contract, with a four percent raise in the first year, 3.5 percent in the second, and three percent in the third. Read more »
Local 255 Grapples with Broken Healthcare System
It has always been a point of pride for members of UE Local 255, which represents workers at Hunger Mountain Co-op, that they have never paid anything towards their insurance premiums. However, a 26 percent increase in the cost of their health care plan and the limited number of insurance providers in Vermont put them in a difficult position during their most recent negotiations, which took place from April through August of this year. Read more »
FEATURE
New Book Shines Critical Light on U.S. Labor’s Relationship with Israel
UE’s commitment to Palestinian rights is the exception, not the rule, in the U.S. labor movement. In his new book, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine, historian Jeff Schuhrke explains that the U.S. labor movement has never been neutral when it comes to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and critiques those that claim unions should stay out of the worsening conflict. He explains in detail how U.S. unions have not only supported Israel, but helped build it. Read more »
Former Secretary-Treasurer Bobby Clark Dies
Robert L. Clark, who served as UE’s general secretary-treasurer from 1994 to 2001 and was generally known as “Bobby,” passed away on October 10. He was UE’s first Black national officer. As secretary-treasurer, Clark strongly supported UE’s commitment to independent political action. He was also a strong supporter of the union’s international program, seeing international working-class solidarity as the only solution to the deluge of plant closings which decimated the union’s ranks during his time in office. Read more »
Workers Here Have More in Common With Palestinians Being Bombed Than the Billionaires Bombing Them
On October 31, the UE National Officers published an op-ed in In These Times on Palestine and Gaza. They explain why, even beyond the prospects of a ceasefire, UE is calling for an end to US military aid to Israel — and why other unions should be working towards the same thing. Read more »
General President Carl Rosen Retiring
General President Carl Rosen, who will retire in November after over four decades in UE, walked his first picket line at age five, when his father joined his fellow members of UE Local 1114 in a four-month strike at Goodman Manufacturing on Chicago’s south side. In college, Rosen spent his summers working at factory and warehouse jobs represented by the Steelworkers union and his time on campus helping organize the student movement against apartheid in South Africa. Read more »
Job Openings at UE
Explore current job opportunities with UE! Click each title for full details:
Bulletin
