Meeting on September 12 and 13, UE’s General Executive Board debated and approved a statement calling on UE locals and members, and the rest of the labor movement, to “get serious about building a true political alternative, a labor party that can unite and speak for the working class.”
The statement notes that corporate control of both major parties has resulted in worse and worse choices every election cycle, but recommends that working people make the strategic choice to vote for Kamala Harris in this election, to preserve the favorable organizing climate that labor has enjoyed under the Biden-Harris administration.
Members of the GEB, who are elected rank-and-file leaders from local unions across the country, had a frank discussion about the difficulties of talking about politics in their local unions. Bud Decker, Local 329, said that while he hates politics, there is “no way to get rid of them,” because if anti-union politicians have their way "there will be no unions." Margaret Dabrowski, Local 222, said that without unions engaging in political action, “any laws in your city, any laws in your county” that affect the lives of workers can be made worse.
Scott Slawson, Local 506, gave a concrete example: pensions, which were eliminated in many workplaces — including at Wabtec — following the mis-named “Pension Protection Act” passed in 2006 by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. “This is why we need to be political, this is why … workers need to band together and get into these fights,” he said. “These are the freedoms that are being stripped away from us when people say we get too political.”
Carl Rosen emphasized that the statement was not an endorsement of Harris. UE only endorses candidates, he said, when “we think they have a program that represents what working people need.” Nonetheless, he called the threat of a second Trump presidency “a real clear and present danger,” noting that “a Trump White House will probably undo, as quick as they can, the right for graduate workers to form unions.” Director of Organization Mark Meinster emphasized that if Trump is elected, “extreme anti-union forces will be running the show” in the federal government, forces that will likely seek to pass a national “right-to-work” law.
“War is profitable, people are making money off of war”
During the political action report, Rosen detailed the leadership role that UE has been playing in mobilizing labor voices for a ceasefire in the Middle East, which prompted a vigorous and passionate discussion of Israel’s continuing military assault on Gaza.
Ramona Malczynski, Local 1466, reported that her local’s involvement in demanding a ceasefire has prompted backlash from a few members, but they haven’t withdrawn their membership. “We genuinely put out the message, let’s talk about this,” she said. “If you disagree, let’s have a conversation.” She contrasted the $30 billion in military aid that the U.S. government is sending to Israel with the human needs in the state of New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country, where children are going hungry and addiction problems are “massive.” She also noted that many members of her local are from the Middle East and are concerned about the war spreading regionally.
Slawson warned that the Middle East is a “tinderbox” and that “there is a real possibility this could escalate further.” He said that “We have to stop condoning … just indiscriminate killing, and that’s what’s happening. The ceasefire’s about ending a genocide is what it’s about.”
Dabrowski remarked on the different treatment of Israeli and Palestinian deaths in the media, and said that the war is continuing because “War is profitable, people are making money off of war.”
Training New Leaders in “The UE Model”
In his organizing report, Meinster detailed the efforts underway to support the leaders of UE’s new graduate worker locals, “training them on how to be UE leaders and how to operate as a UE local.” Locals 197, 256, 1103 and 1122, which settled first UE contracts covering over 10,000 workers in the past 13 months, have elected hundreds of stewards and are engaged in actively enforcing their contracts. “That’s where you really start to change the power relationship” in the workplace, Meinster said.
The union is engaged in member-to-member training of new local officers, grounded in UE history and principles. “The UE model, when people really buy into it, they learn it and they are able to teach others,” he said. He also reported on continued organizing efforts in higher education, among public sector workers in the South, and in manufacturing.
Delores Phillips, Local 1118, gave a report on the Women’s Leadership Program (see page 14), which led to a robust discussion of the various targeted leadership development programs that UE has initiated over the past two decades. Both Malczynski and Sekia Royall, Local 150, spoke about their participation in the Leadership and Staff Development Program, which was initiated in 2021, and Antwon Gibson, Local 610, noted that “I go back to the Young Activist Program” that UE ran in the 2000s.