Five unions representing Wabtec workers from across the globe have written letters to Wabtec CEO Rafael Santana expressing their solidarity with the members of UE Locals 506 and 618, and demanding that the company settle a fair contract at its locomotive plant in Erie, PA.
On January 30, 2023, the federal government made a cost of living adjustment to the federal minimum wage for contractors, bringing it from the original $15.00 set by Executive Order 14026 in January of 2022 to $16.20.
UE Local 808 represents hundreds of workers employed by the contractor ITC Federal at the USCIS service center here. “General Clerk I” — the lowest-paid job category — makes up about 40 percent of the bargaining unit, and the local had expected that raising GCI’s wages from the current rate of $15.91 to the new minimum would be non-controversial. The company, though, was resistant to acknowledging its obligation to make that adjustment, making specious arguments about contract renewal dates.
On Monday, May 8, UE Local 150/Charlotte City Workers Union members rallied and marched in the streets from Marshall Park to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center in Uptown Charlotte chanting “When city workers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
City workers from departments around the city went to Charlotte City Council meeting — against the advice of department heads and supervisors — to demand higher raises than the six percent raise being proposed in the city budget (three percent in July and a second three percent increase in January of 2024).
The approximately 100 members of UE Local 250 have ratified a new five-year contract with their employer, Hertz. Local 250 members drive Hertz rental cars between the company distribution center at Boston’s Logan airport and dozens of satellite locations throughout New England.
Northwestern University Graduate Workers (NUGW) was founded in 2016 following the NLRB Columbia decision that ruled graduate student workers at private universities can organize and bargain collectively.
Graduate workers at Johns Hopkins University began collective bargaining as Teachers and Researchers United-United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (TRU-UE) with the university administration on May 10, 2023. Earlier this spring, graduate students at Hopkins won a historic vote for the formation of TRU-UE with a 97 percent majority, with 2,053 graduate students voting yes and 67 voting no. TRU-UE now represents around 3,200 PhD workers across the Johns Hopkins Homewood, East Baltimore and Washington DC campuses.
The certification of Graduate Students United-UE as the collective bargaining agent for University of Chicago graduate workers on March 24, 2023 was over 16 years in the making. A photograph of the National Labor Relations Board regional director’s signature resonated especially deeply with many of the senior organizers who had been around for the previous unionization campaign.
The movement for unionization of Dartmouth graduate students began around October 2021, when a small group of graduate students met for the first time to attempt to achieve something none of them had any experience doing — organizing their workplace.
Our campaign began in the aftermath of the University of Minnesota campus shutting down with the beginning of the pandemic. Grad workers were suddenly saddled with transitioning classes online and maintaining and reopening in-person lab spaces. This sudden shift in our workload contrasted with wages well below the cost of living, lackluster benefits, and no real protections for on-the-job grievances. Grad workers were clearly essential to the University of Minnesota, but beyond platitudes, administrative actions did not reflect that.
“The idea that you can come to work under terms that you did not agree to should have gone out with the 13th Amendment,” AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson, one of the most well-known labor leaders in the U.S. told attendees at two UE-sponsored virtual events on Wednesday, May 31. (The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude.)
In a virtual press conference and a webinar, the Association of Flight Attendants president and Rev. Richard Freeman, the president of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, joined leaders of UE Local 506 to make the case that workers having the right to strike over grievances mid-contract is the best way to resolve workplace disputes swiftly and fairly.
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