In Wake of COVID Workplace Deaths, Workers Across NC Organize Emergency Rallies for Safety

On February 16, over 3,000 workers in dozens of workplaces across North Carolina participated in workplace actions to demand more safety amid COVID. Delta and Omicron variants of the coronavirus are continuing to surge across North Carolina and increasingly pose a terrifying workplace safety concern. Most recently, an Amazon worker at the Garner RDU1 Fulfillment Center, as well as a Charlotte City light rail operator, died of COVID. This is a dire emergency. Employers and the NC Department of Labor are not moving to implement emergency standards to keep workers safe. Labor leaders have been meeting with NCDOL Commissioner Josh Dobson since his election. Yet, despite his public pronouncements, Dobson has done little to keep workers safe, including increased enforcement and implementation of Emergency Temporary Standards to address the unique challenges of coronavirus.

Eastern Region, Local 667 Endorse Summer Lee for Congress

On Thursday, February 17, in a unanimous vote, the executive board of UE’s Eastern Region voted to endorse State Representative Summer Lee’s bid to become the first Black woman elected to Congress from the state of Pennsylvania. Earlier that day, the membership of UE Local 667 also voted to endorse Lee. “She has been a stalwart supporter of labor, and particularly UE and our principles,” Eastern Region President George Waksmunski told the UE NEWS. “She's just what we need … She's going to support us on every issue that is near and dear to our hearts.”

A Real Program to Fight Inflation

Inflation has become a big issue for many working people, with two thirds of respondents in a recent poll identifying it as a major concern for them personally. Of particular concern is the fact that inflation is especially high for the daily essentials for working people, with increases in the cost of gasoline, utilities, transportation, and meat, poultry and fish all well above the overall inflation rate. However, the corporate press largely ignores the role of corporate profits and price-gouging in driving inflation, and the main solution offered — raising interest rates — would be a disaster for working people. Read more »

New E-Book Documents UE-FAT Cross-Border Alliance

International Solidarity in Action, a new e-book written by UE’s retired Director of International Affairs Robin Alexander and published by UE, provides an in-depth look at the decades-long relationship between the UE and the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), an independent Mexican labor federation. Read more »

Leadership and Staff Development Program Informed by Diverse Life Experiences

UE Local 1008 Vice President Fred Hatef reports on the second meeting of the UE Leadership & Staff Development Program (LSDP): “It was very encouraging and inspiring to be a part of this program and to learn about activism and union organizing from so many experienced and talented organizers from diverse backgrounds. ... Learning about UE’s history of fighting for workers of all racial backgrounds and our bottom-up democratic structure, and working with the other participants from diverse backgrounds, left me with all the confidence in the world that UE is a union that takes representation seriously as a principle.” Read more »

UE Visitor to Cuba Finds Culture of Solidarity

On a recent delegation to Cuba, UE Project Staff Chris Hollis asked local union leaders at an electronics plant in Havana how workers in Cuba would go about organizing a union. “They didn't understand my question,” Hollis told the UE NEWS. After several attempts to rephrase his question — “How do you go about building unions in these plants?” — the source of the workers’ confusion became clear: in Cuba, “every job has a union.” Workers are not forced to go through the same difficult process as workers in the U.S. in order to exercise the right of collective bargaining. Read more »

A Labor Movement to Challenge the Billionaires

Veteran union negotiator and labor lawyer Joe Burns has issued a bracing challenge to the U.S. labor movement in his new book, Class Struggle Unionism, one that should be read by everyone in the labor movement, and everyone who is concerned about the power that the billionaire class exercises over our society. Read more »