The North American Solidarity Project, a joint project of UE and Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, held a high-level study group meeting on union political action in March. Leaders and staff from both unions discussed the challenges of independent, working-class political action in an age of rising right-wing populism and abandonment of workers by the parties that claim to represent working-class interests.
The UE News spoke this week with Professor Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center about rising inequality in America, shortly before he joined Senator Bernie Sanders, filmmaker Michael Moore and Senator Elizabeth Warren for a National Town Hall Meeting on Monday, March 19th. Watch the video on Facebook here.
What American workers need is not partial half-measures, but a trade and industrial policy that is based on international cooperation, respect for workers’ rights, and environmental sustainability — one that raises living standards for workers across industries and across borders through investment in infrastructure, jobs and social programs.
Members of UE Locals 203 and 255 joined Vermonters from around the state on January 25 to tell the Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs Committee to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
UE members and others told the senators that legislation that would boost the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour over several years will improve their lives, and the lives of their co-workers, neighbors, families, and communities.
President Trump’s decision this week to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv is an affront to all peace-loving people.
It will only inflame tensions in the Middle East, leading to more violence. It will bring further oppression of the Palestinian people. It will bring neither peace nor security for the people of Israel.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) helped corporations outsource one million good jobs from the U.S.
The terms of this massive corporate power grab are now being renegotiated, with talks happening right now in Washington, D.C.
This could finally be our chance to replace NAFTA and end its damage — but the negotiations are happening behind closed doors with 500 corporate advisors granted special access and the public locked out.
Among the wave of progressive, pro-worker candidates elected in local elections on November 7th were several strong supporters of UE Local 150. Local 150 members in four North Carolina cities — Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh — hosted candidate forums, talked with their co-workers, met with candidates and participated in election turn-out work. All four cities saw their city government shift in a more worker-friendly direction.
Last Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan unveiled the misnamed “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” As expected, this plan is a massive tax giveaway to the billionaires and corporations who fund the campaigns of politicians like Ryan. It will not cut taxes for working people, nor will it create jobs.
On Friday, UE joined a rally at the Gary-Chicago International Airport, to protest the deportation of immigrants.
“An attack on immigrants is an attack on worker rights, and the working and living conditions of all U.S. workers,” said UE Local 1177 executive board member Shelly Burke, who represented UE on the speakers’ list. “We need a halt to deportation and all other harassment of immigrants.”
“UE has always supported a foreign policy based on labor solidarity and diplomacy,” said UE General President Peter Knowlton. “We especially welcome Senator Sanders’ insistence that our country must seek to build stronger relationships between people at the grassroots level, and his drawing attention to the fact that inequality, corruption and authoritarianism are part of a single system that oppresses and exploits workers across the globe.”