UE Victory at Refresco Is Largest Blue-Collar NLRB Win of 2021

250 workers at the Refresco bottling plant in Wharton, NJ voted to join UE in an NLRB election conducted on June 24 and 25. The majority-Latinx workforce voted for UE due to the company's arbitrary work schedules and unfair attendance policy, and their desire to significantly improve wages and benefits.

The organizing campaign began last year at the onset of the pandemic, as workers believed that the company unnecessarily exposed them to COVID-19.

Members from several UE locals throughout the Eastern Region provided support to Refresco workers as the vote approached, including sending videos encouraging the workers to vote UE.

Refresco is a Dutch multinational corporation that claims to be the world's largest independent bottler of soft drinks. According to the newsletter Who Gets the Bird, the UE victory is the biggest blue-collar (i.e., not healthcare, education, or office workers) NLRB win of 2021 so far.

Thousands of New Mexico Graduate Employees Organizing with UE

Over 2,500 graduate workers at the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University are making history as the first graduate worker unions to seek recognition in the state of New Mexico. They are also the first large bargaining units to unionize under New Mexico’s new “card check” union laws for public-sector workers, which provide for union recognition after a majority of workers have signed cards indicating their desire to join the union.

General Executive Board Approves New Leadership and Staff Development Program

Meeting over Zoom on June 10 and 11, the UE General Executive Board reviewed a proposal for a program to encourage the development of rank and file members from racial and ethnic backgrounds who are currently underrepresented in UE leadership or on the UE staff. The program would help members to gain experiences and develop skills to attain higher leadership positions, and to seek employment on UE staff when openings become available. Read more »

It’s Not a “Worker Shortage,” It’s a Wage Shortage

A number of features of the current recovery — somewhat higher inflation and the perception of a “worker shortage” — are being used by employers and many Republican politicians as arguments to roll back unemployment compensation and block further stimulus. However, the actual evidence demonstrates that the issue is not a lack of available jobs, but rather the unwillingness of workers to return to work at low pay levels, continued concerns about COVID-19 exposure, and lack of child care. Read more »

Anti-Worker Majority on Supreme Court Takes First Swipe at Workers’ Rights

On June 23, the Supreme Court issued its first major decision of the year on workers’ rights — and the results were not good for workers. Bolstered by Trump’s three appointments, all of whom embrace a pro-corporate, right-wing ideology, a 6-3 majority ruled that a California law which protects farmworkers’ rights to talk to union organizers constitutes a “taking” of property. The decision “represents a dramatic rightward shift in the Court’s takings jurisprudence, one that calls into question a whole host of government regulations designed to protect workers and the public.” Read more »

Online Exchanges Bring Workers Together Across North America

From March 20 through June 9, the North American Solidarity Project (NASP) held the Worker Power Online Exchange series. Each event was a Zoom webinar featuring rank-and-file workers from UE and our NASP partner unions, as well as a few notable guest speakers. Topics included racial justice, the experiences of frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, labor and the climate crisis, the struggle for public health care, and class war in a time of COVID-19. Read more »

Busy Spring for Local 222

UE Local 222, which represents a wide variety of school and municipal workers throughout the state of Connecticut, settled a number of contracts this spring. Sublocal 80 has negotiated a new contract covering custodians, administrative assistants and food service workers who work for the Woodbridge Board of Education. Sublocal 76 bargained a new contract for Tolland County Fire Dispatchers in May, and paraprofessionals at the Windsor Locks Board of Education (Sublocal 4) and the Old Saybrook School District (Local 53) settled new contracts in February. Read more »

77th UE Convention To Be Held in Pittsburgh

The theme of the 77th UE Convention, to be held from September 19-23 in Pittsburgh, will be “Leading Through Tough Times.” In a letter to UE locals accompanying the official convention call, UE Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker wrote that this theme “reflects the incredible challenges that UE members, leaders and staff have faced and prevailed over during these difficult times.” Read more »

FEATURE

Working-Class Pride in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union

Decades before the modern LGBTQ+ movement, a small but militant union of maritime workers on the West Coast with openly gay members and leaders coined a slogan linking discrimination against gay men, racial discrimination, and red-baiting. For the better part of two decades, the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union (MCS) fought discrimination on the ships where its members worked and in society, until it was crushed by the same corporate and government forces that tried to destroy UE during the Cold War. Read more »

UE Communications Director Jonathan Kissam will be joining an online panel about MCS on Thursday, July 8, at 7pm Pacific / 10pm Eastern. More information »