Hi John,
This week, I realized that my first year as Director of the UE Research and Education Fund is almost done. It’s been such a challenging year for workers. Our work this year has proven that UEREF is needed now more than ever. On this Giving Tuesday, can we count on you to stand alongside us in our worker-led fight for economic and environmental justice?
This year has thrown some punches, but UE Research and Education Fund is not new to the fight. Since 1994, we have expanded our programs to develop worker leadership across the U.S. The unprecedented attacks on working people and social justice movements in 2025 have pushed us to be resourceful. So we pivoted our strategies and leaned harder than ever into our fight for workplace justice. At UEREF, we are not backing down.
2025 was a vital year of building and growth for our initiatives. Our Green Locomotive Project faced the largest EPA deregulatory action in history. Many of the federal anti-pollution rules we’ve fought for years to enforce and expand were mercilessly pulled back by the government. We refocused our energy on an unstoppable force regulators can’t destroy: worker leadership. We doubled down on our efforts to train and empower workers and take the fight directly to the manufacturers and demand they invest in a just transition. We hosted exchanges between UE Local 506 members in Erie, Pennsylvania and nonunion locomotive manufacturing workers across the U.S. south. In the year ahead, we’ll add international workers to the mix as we continue to bring locomotive manufacturing and rail crew drivers together.
Our Southern Worker Justice Campaign has also been on the move. As I write, SWJC is working closely with our allies to push back against the federal deployment of ICE in Charlotte, North Carolina. We will not let them tear our communities apart in a baldfaced attempt to divide the working class. SWJC is committed to building solidarity among workers across race, place, and nationality to fight the real enemy: corporate greed. In 2026, SWJC will fight harder than ever to ensure corporations pay what they owe in taxes, win safe staffing levels at state mental health facilities, and establish a $25/hour statewide minimum wage across North Carolina.
We knew this would be a year of formidable challenges. But as it draws to a close, I am confident in the foundation we have laid. We need your help to keep building and fortifying for the year ahead, which will be even more challenging. The bosses would rather see us running scared. Luckily, UE has never shied away from taking on tough fights. Through UEREF, we invest in rank-and-file workers, educating them, building their skills, and developing them into powerful leaders.
John, UEREF’s commitment to worker self-organization is what makes us the movement for this moment. Can we count on you to help us bring our organizing training and skill-building to workers across North America? Stand with us to develop worker-leaders ready to fight for justice in the year ahead.
In solidarity,
Tommy Carden
Director, UE Research and Education Fund
