Union workers rallied in Verona outside of Daikin to protest for fair pay and respect Monday. Sylvia Eaves, president of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine workers of America (UE) Local 123 [...] said she hopes the rally will show Daikin that the UE is a united front and will not stand for being treated unfairly.
In a special interview, UE President Carl Rosen demands an end to U.S. military aid “because our country is the one that enables Israel to do what it’s doing.”
“Labor unions exist to fight on behalf of the working class, and part of the fight of the working class is for peace, to not waste money on military spending, but instead direct it to social spending that lifts up the living standards of the working class and not have working people sent off to their deaths in needless wars.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders recently raised concerns about the “anticipated layoffs” at the center in a letter to a top federal immigration official. Union officials accuse the federal government of engaging in a union-busting pattern.
UE Local 808 President Dawn Meyer calls the center’s move “union busting.”
“What they are doing is, they’re taking good union jobs,” said Meyer. “They’re outsourcing them to places that are paying less money, are less efficient, are far less vigilant in accuracy. They’re risking people’s ability to get immigration benefits.”
A group of unions representing millions of workers sent a letter on Tuesday to the White House demanding a cease-fire in the war in Gaza and that the United States stop sending military aid to Israel. [ ... ]
Given their membership, the union letter is a strong statement from a key electorate that the administration needs to update its Mideast foreign policy, a policy that Vice President Kamala Harris, who was endorsed by Mr. Biden and several top Democrats to become the Democrats’ nominee, will also have to speak for.
“The right to protest and just cause for discipline are fundamental principles that unions seek to protect,” write UE Local 1043-Stanford Graduate Workers Union members Jason Beckman, Sophie Jean Walton, and Chloé Brault. “Recent arrests and suspensions of graduate workers at institutions across the United States highlight the importance of this right. ... For graduate workers, the ability to speak, to assemble and to protest freely within our own community are at the core of labor organization.”
Among the speakers at the meeting was Larry Hopkins, who works for a rail crew transportation company and lives on the Southwest Side of Chicago.
“I’m bounded by four rail yards within a 2- to 4-mile radius,” said Hopkins, western region vice president of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. “These train locomotives are polluting our air. These locomotives are causing major problems in our communities and harming railroad workers and drivers like myself.”
UE General President Carl Rosen writes in Labor Notes:
Why were UE members ready to act? We educate our membership on the issues, discuss and debate them in a democratic fashion, and our members make union policy at conventions held every two years.
On Monday, sanitation workers, firefighters and faith leaders rallied ahead of the city council meeting. George Bacote, a sanitation worker, told ABC11 that this budget is critical.
"A lot of my coworkers are leaving the job to start their own companies," said Bacote "They feel like they'd be better off. I've thought about it many, times many times. It's always playing in my head. I'm tired of the stress and headache."
UE General President Carl Rosen joined economist and labor historian Michael Zweig on WPKN’s Monthly Labor Report to discuss the nation-wide campaign by organized labor to demand an immediate and permanent cease fire in the ongoing slaughter by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.