UE NEWS Features

UE’s 78th Convention was held in Pittsburgh, a city that is not only home to the union’s national office but also to a rich history of worker organizing and strikes. From the 1840s to today, the women and men whose labor built this city struggled — and often struck — to reclaim a share of the wealth their labor produced.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most violent attacks on a UE picket line in history. On August 3, 1948, 1,500 national guards, armed with tear gas, machine guns, and tanks, arrived in Dayton, Ohio to suppress a strike by 600 UE members at the Univis Lens plant. The workers voted to strike after their employer refused to offer even a single cent in wage increases during contract negotiations.

Following ratification of first contracts by members of UE Local 1466-United Graduate Workers at the University of New Mexico and UE Local 1498-Graduate Workers United at New Mexico State University, thousands of graduate workers in the state are now covered by collective bargaining agreements. Both locals joined UE in historic “card check” drives at the beginning of the pandemic and have overwhelmingly ratified first contracts in mid-December, earning 7.12 percent and 6.8 percent raises, respectively, for their members.

Ralph Fasanella, a former UE organizer who became recognized as one of America’s greatest painters of working-class life and struggle, passed away twenty-five years ago, on December 16, 1997. His paintings — which he intended to be viewed in union halls, not private homes — depict a working class that is diverse, politically engaged yet exuberant in their leisure, and, most importantly, organized and willing to engage in struggle.