UE members joined rallies hosted by the National Association of Letter Carriers on Sunday, March 23 to say “Hell No!” to dismantling or privatizing the Postal Service.
Federal agents are currently on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY attempting to detain UE Local 300-Cornell Graduate Students United member Momodou Taal. Taal is an international graduate worker and visa holder who was terminated from his employment and threatened with deportation by Cornell administrators last September without just cause.
The UE officers have released a statement denouncing the arrest, detainment and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the U.S., in retaliation for his peacefully speaking out on political issues. The officers condemned this abduction, as well as other threats by the Trump administration against universities, as “serious attacks on our civil liberties” which “will impact all working people if they are not vigorously resisted.”
The statement further points out that “History has shown that a government that feels like it can get away with detaining or deporting legal residents for political speech will also be willing to arrest or deport union leaders who speak out about bad working conditions and low wages.”
On Friday, March 7, members of UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, spoke out against increased insurance costs and cuts to health services at the State Health Plan Board of Trustees meeting. Last month, the SHP Board, led by State Treasurer Brad Briner, voted on several proposals to increase the premiums and deductibles paid by over 700,000 state employees. The board is also considering future cuts to services and privatization of retiree health insurance plans.
UE Local 506 conducted trainings for its stewards on all three shifts at the local’s union hall on Thursday, March 6. Local 506 represents 1,400 production and maintenance workers at the sprawling Wabtec locomotive facility in Erie.
The trainings were conducted by Brian Chismar, the Chief Plant Steward, with the assistance of several of the local’s divisional chief stewards. The trainings covered the basics of stewards’ duties, including communicating with their members, filing grievances, and organizing their members.
The Local 792 Bargaining Committee knew that they had to get their membership involved as they prepared for contract negotiations, but they were surprised that a routine information request gave them a key opportunity to do so. Local 792 members organized in 1994 and have been employed by contractor Quest Food Management Services since 2023. They do food service work at Wright State University, an Ohio public university near Dayton.
On February 5, members of Local 106 ratified a new three-year contract with Buckeye Pipeline. The contract includes the highest raises the local has received from the current company, which took over the operations of the Port Reading terminal in 2013. In addition to wage increases of up to 12 percent, the members won contract language on new job classifications that they have been fighting for since Buckeye took over.
UE has produced our first-ever music video! Singer-songwriter Mike Stout recorded his anthem about UE history, “We Are the Rank and File” in 2023; the UE Communications Department has set the tune to images of UE struggles past and present, along with footage of Stout performing the song at the 2023 UE Convention.
Video production by UE Digital Organizers Ebony Thomas and Samantha Cooney.
At nearly 3am on November 25, 2024, after more than 30 hours spent bargaining over two days, graduate workers at the University of Minnesota reached a tentative agreement with university administration on their collective bargaining agreement. Bargaining committee members were left exhausted after a grueling two days of mediation, but held their heads high with the knowledge that the local’s first contract made significant strides toward securing dignity for all graduate workers and addressing the most urgent needs of union members.
Only 12 hours away from an impending strike, the graduate workers of Stanford University secured a strong tentative agreement on their historic first contract. The members of UE Local 1043, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU), ratified this contract on November 22, 2024 with over 85 percent voting in favor.
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