UE NEWS Features

“Imagine we have this Easter egg hunt for kids,” economist Fadhel Kaboub told participants in a recent webinar co-sponsored by UE. “Imagine we have 100 kids at the park where we’re organizing this party but we only have 90 eggs. We’re setting up those kids to fail.” Then he made it clear why he proposed such an absurd scenario:

“That’s what we do in the labor market.”

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the “Wisconsin Uprising,” when public-sector workers and their allies peacefully occupied the state capitol building in Madison to protest Governor Scott Walker’s intent to strip them of their collective bargaining rights. The peaceful protests captured the imagination of working people across the state and country. Every UE local in Wisconsin sent members to Madison during the occupation of the state capitol, and UE locals around the country participated in solidarity actions.

When UE members elect their local officers, there is a pretty simple system: each local member gets one vote, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. Most nations that elect a single chief executive such as a president use a similar system, albeit on a much larger scale. “One person, one vote” and majority rule are basic to the practice of democracy.

As racial justice protests swept the country following the murder of George Floyd in late May, UE’s officers issued a statement calling on working people to “stand in solidarity with our Black brothers, sisters and siblings, and to redouble our efforts to fight for racial justice.” UE locals across the country responded to the moment in a variety of ways, from joining demonstrations, taking actions at the workplace, opening their union office to protesters, and perhaps most importantly, initiating discussions among union members about why it is important to fight racism in order to build and maintain working-class unity.