UE NEWS Updates

A UE delegation traveled to Mexico for a week in May to meet with our allies at the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) for the first time since 2017. The trip was an important opportunity to ground UE members in the union’s international solidarity work, which prioritizes supporting workers in their struggles with their bosses. As members learned, even when our managers might be different, our employers use the same kinds of tactics to prevent workers from organizing and to exploit workers’ labor.

UE’s General Executive Board, made up of elected rank-and-file members from around the country, met from June 5-7.

On the opening day, board members had a frank and wide-ranging discussion about the upcoming presidential election, which offers working people, in the words of Western Region President Bryan Martindale, “the ultimate damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. “We’re at rock-bottom hard spot,” Martindale said.

Members of Local 1466, the United Graduate Workers of UNM, won 30 percent raises for project assistants, the lowest paid workers in the bargaining unit, during their reopener which began April 8, 2024. The members, who are graduate workers at the University of New Mexico, began their second compensation bargaining reopener with the UNM administration stalling for three hours before adjourning the day’s meeting without providing a counter proposal. It was clear to all members of the local’s bargaining team that the administration was ill-prepared to meet with us at the bargaining table. 

Members of Local 799, who work various jobs in the food service, maintenance, custodial, and transportation departments at Delaware City Schools, had to settle their previous contract with the school district in 2022 under difficult circumstances. Students had just recently returned to the classroom after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the district’s financial future was unclear. The union agreed to relatively low wage increases, with a wage reopener in 2024.