UE NEWS Updates

UPDATE, 12/14: The South Korean parliament voted 204 to 85 to impeach President Yoon on Saturday, December 14.

On the evening of December 3, South Korea’s right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, citing threats from “anti-state forces.” Following the announcement, hundreds of Korean citizens, including many members of the 1.2 million member Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, defied the ban on political activity, gathering at the parliament building where 190 lawmakers were able to enter the building and pass a unanimous motion rejecting Yoon’s imposition of martial law. Several hours later, Yoon rescinded his order.

UE Local 625 ratified a three-year contract on November 16 following a contract campaign which directly confronted the greed of their employer, Hitachi Energy. The vote was held in a crowded room of union members at the Kosciuszko Club in Mt. Pleasant. The workers, who build high-quality circuit breakers and high-voltage equipment at locations in Greensburg and Mt. Pleasant, had been working without a contract for over two weeks.

Four hours after beginning the process for negotiating a new union contract with their employer, members of UE Local 155 at Chasen Fiber Technologies were notified that their parent company, Integreon Global, intended to shut down their plant on November 1.

A New Jersey law requires that companies pay severance when they shut down a plant, but the Chasen facility’s small size exempts it from the law. Integreon attempted to take advantage of that loophole to avoid providing any severance to its workers.

The graduate student workers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) reached a significant milestone on October 1, when they participated in their first bargaining session to negotiate a union contract. These workers, part of a joint program between WHOI and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have been organizing their union since early 2023. Inspired by successful union drives by graduate workers at other institutions, particularly MIT, the WHOI workers were determined to secure better protections and benefits.