UE Statements

Railroads are a crucial part of our nation’s infrastructure. Nearly every sector of our economy depends on goods shipped by the railroads ... [and] the greater fuel efficiency of using rail to move both people and freight means that moving more of our transportation onto the railroads will be necessary to address the existential threat of climate change.

Yet the private owners of our nation’s Class 1 railroads have shown themselves utterly incapable of facing the challenge of the climate crisis, dealing fairly with their own workers, or even meeting the most basic needs of their customers. Therefore, we demand that Congress immediately begin a process of bringing our nation’s railroads under public ownership.

Statement of the UE officers

The current move by President Biden and Congress to impose a contract on our nation’s 115,000 railroad workers — a contract that the members of rail unions representing the majority of those workers have rejected — is an unconscionable attack on rail workers, the labor movement, and the entire U.S. working class.

Statement of the UE General Executive Board

The situation working people find ourselves in as we approach the midterm elections — a cost-of-living crisis, broken labor law, and assaults on our rights and liberties — requires decisive action from our government. However, we are prevented from exercising democratic control over our society and economy by a corrupt two-party system that is fueled by corporate cash, and enabled by divisions among working people and increasing cynicism about democracy itself.

UE condemns the Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. It is an indefensible attack on the right of women and pregnant people to control their own bodies, one of the most fundamental of liberties. Furthermore, the opinion, which overturns a half century of settled law, signals that this unelected group of six right-wing justices sees none of our rights as untouchable.

Our country’s democracy is facing the greatest threat in over half a century, as voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the flood of dark money in politics make it increasingly difficult for working people to have a voice in our government. If Democrats in Congress do not act swiftly and firmly by immediately passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — and if President Biden does not provide bold leadership to this effort — the ability of working people to fend off corporate attacks in the political arena will be severely damaged for generations to come.

UE stands in solidarity with the progressive members of Congress who are refusing to buckle under to demands from corporate Democrats to water down the budget reconciliation bill. Working people need the federal government to invest in all aspects of our infrastructure — in child care, paid leave, health care, climate action, affordable housing, and education, as well as roads and bridges.

UE joins unions from around the world, including the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the Italian metalworkers’ union FIOM, and the French labor federation CGT, in condemning the most recent violent Israeli attacks on the people of Palestine.

As a rank-and-file union proud of our democratic traditions, UE condemns the voter suppression bill passed in Georgia last month, as well as the hundreds of similar bills being pushed in state legislatures across the country, overwhelmingly by Republican politicians.

Our nation is at a crossroads. Forty years of continued assault on working-class living standards have eroded working people’s faith in government. Corporations have attacked wages and benefits, destroyed good jobs, busted unions, and devastated whole communities through plant closings. Meanwhile, politicians of both parties have pursued privatization and deregulation, doing their best to turn government from an instrument for the public good into an opportunity for private gain — for themselves and their wealthy friends.

UE unequivocally condemns the violent attempts by a group of supporters of President Trump to disrupt the certification of the electoral college results in Washington, DC yesterday. This was an attempt by a small group of extremists to overturn a democratic election in which record numbers of U.S. citizens participated. This assault on democracy also threatened the safety of thousands of public employees who work in the capitol.