Over 100 UE members and staff from across the country attended the 2024 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago in April. Many were featured panelists or workshop facilitators for 14 different program offerings, highlighting UE campaigns and skills. All participated in a rich variety of workshops, panels, and gatherings designed to grow the “trouble-making” wing of the labor movement.
During 12 days of negotiations with the Franklin Regional Transit Authority (FRTA), the members of amalgamated Local 274 used the threat of picketing and other escalating actions to secure a large wage increase, benefit improvements for all members, and the end of a two-tier system.
Close to midnight on February 21, 2024, after a grueling 15-hour bargaining session, graduate workers at Northwestern reached a tentative agreement with the university administration on their collective bargaining contract. Members of the bargaining committee and observing members broke into applause and hugged one another as the agreement was finalized. Three weeks later, on March 15, 2024, a majority of Northwestern graduate workers voted to ratify this hard-fought and groundbreaking first contract.
After three days of negotiations, the members of Local 222 Sublocal 21 who work as support staff and supervisors for the Trumbull Board of Education bargained and ratified two new contracts. The members won 2.75 percent wage increases each year of the three-year contracts. The workers were also able to negotiate with the company to have their insurance premiums increase only half a percent each year for the life of the contract, totaling only 1.5 percent, and won a matching increase of 0.5 percent to their 401(k) benefits.
UE Local 506 hosted several UE grad worker locals for a training and strategizing meet up in mid-March. Grad workers from public and private universities at different stages of organization (fight for first contract, having a successful strike threat, going into compensation bargaining) got together to learn from each other and from other UE locals including Sargent and Refresco workers (Local 243 and 115, respectively).
Seven UE graduate worker locals gathered together for a Graduate Workers Organizing Committee (GWOC) lunch meeting hosted by Local 1466, the United Graduate Workers of New Mexico, on April 13 during the UE Western Regional Conference.
The largest Eastern Region council meeting in recent memory, with around 100 delegates, guests, and staff, met this past weekend in North Carolina, home of UE’s statewide Local 150. The council meeting heard shop reports from two dozen locals, reports about UE’s recent growth from two national officers, and, by video, from members of UE locals who have been actively supporting and participating in campus protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Representatives of locals from Ohio to California gathered for the first-ever UE regional council meeting in New Mexico, “The Land of Enchantment,” from April 13-14. Unity of workers and of the working class was a recurring theme as delegates, guests, and regional and national UE leaders discussed the victories and struggles in the union’s Western Region over the past half a year.
Members of UE Local 1186 overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year agreement with Willy Street Co-op on Monday, March 15, which secured structural changes in the contract that ensure pay equity and will allow the union to build on gains for years to come.
The local prioritized getting to a $20/hour starting wage, equity raises based on seniority, and protecting members from rising inflation and skyrocketing housing costs in Madison.
Despite being a non-bargaining year, UE Local 896, also known as the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS), is in the midst of a fight to win concessions from the boss. Since October 2023, COGS — which represents close to 2,000 graduate teaching and research assistants at the University of Iowa (UI) — has been organizing a campaign to end the University's practice of charging graduate workers hundreds of dollars in fees every year to work.
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