Fourteen-Month Struggle Brings First UE Contract at Lanterman

Workers at the Lanterman Regional Center in Los Angeles ratified their first UE contract on June 6. The three-year agreement provides significant wage increases, with many workers seeing increases of over $1,000. The contract also includes bilingual pay, provisions for alternative work arrangements, and a strong union grievance procedure.

UE-Unifor “Blitz” Builds Local 150, Southern Workers Launch Healthcare Campaign

From June 9-14, over 40 UE and Unifor members gathered in rural eastern North Carolina for an organizing blitz, reaching out to non-union workers in 10 different workplaces to talk to them about joining the union. The blitz was a project of the North American Solidarity Project launched in 2017 by UE and our close labor ally in Canada, Unifor. Three Unifor members came to North Carolina to participate in the blitz and learn about the struggles of Southern workers and the social-movement union approach of UE Local 150.

128-Day Struggle Nets First Contract with Wabtec in Erie for Locals 506 and 618

After 128 days of tough contract negotiations, including a nine-day strike, 1,700 members of UE Locals 506 and 618 voted to ratify a four-year contract with their new employer Wabtec on June 12. UE members were able to preserve most of the gains that they had won over 82 years of contract negotiations with their former employer General Electric. But it was one hell of a fight. Read more »

Bills Introduced to Restore Right to Organize

Weak labor laws, employers’ ability to break what laws there are with impunity, and anti-worker courts and labor boards have made it all but impossible for American workers to organize strong unions. As members of recently-organized UE shops know, it takes a heroic effort to withstand the barrage of company propaganda, captive audience meetings, one-on-one sessions and other techniques that bosses, advised by a whole industry of professional union-busters, use to convince, bully or bribe their workers into staying non-union (and exploited). Two new bills in Congress would go a long way to redressing this unequal power balance between workers and bosses. Read more »

Hallcon Drivers in Eight States Join National Contract

For 650 drivers at Hallcon Corporation, the vote for a new union at the end of August 2018 was a great relief. Drivers in eight states had been put into a fake company-dominated union called NPWU Local 707. Drivers stood up to their do-nothing union as well as their boss and won UE as their new union in an NLRB election. NPWU wasted drivers’ time through the end of the year, and held up certification of UE, by filing fake charges that the National Labor Relations Board would end up dismissing entirely. Read more »

Local 150 President Joins International Conference Against Destruction of Public Services

In May, UE Local 150 President Bryce Carter traveled to Japan to participate in an international conference addressing the privatization of public work entitled “International Symposium on Public-Sector Workers’ Struggles against the Destruction of Public Services under Neo-Liberalism.” Carter was hosted by Jichiroren, the Japanese public sector workers’ union affiliated with UE ally Zenroren. Read more »

UE at Labor Network for Sustainability

On June 28-30, UE leaders and staff participated in the 3rd Labor Network for Sustainability Climate Convergence in Chicago. The UE delegation participated in conversations about what they hope to see in labor plans to respond to the climate crisis. They also took part in workshops that dove deeper into this subject for different sectors of work, including transportation, the public sector, and agriculture (farmworkers). See photos and read more on UE's Facebook page »

UE Joins Labor-Environment Forum Outside Pittsburgh

UE members, leaders, and staff attended a packed Labor-Environment forum on Saturday, June 8 at the historic Pump House in Homestead, just outside of Pittsburgh. Over a hundred local union leaders, members, retirees and representatives of community and environmental organizations spent the afternoon discussing the Green New Deal and how to work together to demand that this be a worker and union centered new deal. Read more »

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