UE NEWS Updates

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Trumbull Support Staff Increase Pay, Hold Down Worker Healthcare Costs

January 29, 2008

Trumbull, CT

The support staff for the Trumbull Board of Education, members of UE Local 222/CILU Sub-local 21, have overwhelmingly ratified a new four-year contract. Gross wages will increase by 3.5 percent per year, a total of 14 percent over four years. The first raise is retroactive to July 1, 2007.

Health insurance costs were a major issue, and members were able to limit increases in cost sharing to only a few percent. Employee contributions will be 11 percent, 12 percent, 13 percent and 13 percent, respectively, in the four years of the new contract. 

Tolland County Dispatchers Gain Retiree Healthcare, Raises

January 28, 2008

Tolland, CT


Tolland County Fire Dispatchers, members of UE Local 222/CILU Sub-local 76, have negotiated and ratified a new four-year contract. Bucking the national trend, these workers gained retiree medical insurance for the first time, while substantially increasing their wages.

The new agreement, which goes into effect July 1, 2008, will provide each worker, after retirement, with up to $800 for medical insurance. If the policy costs more than that, the retiree will pay the difference.

Local 1135 Stands Up to Company Threats; Wins Wage Increases for All Tulip Workers

January 27, 2008

Milwaukee

Members of Local 1135 at Tulip Corp. said “no” to a discriminatory and insulting “final offer” from the company, and called the company’s bluff when it tried to force acceptance of its offer by illegal threats. As a result, for the first time they forced the company to improve its final offer, and they achieved equal percentage raises for all workers.

Sen. Bernie Sanders' Speech Rouses Stanley Workers Organizing Rally

January 24, 2008

St. Albans, VT

On January 21 – Martin Luther King Day – Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I) was enthusiastically welcomed by workers at Stanley Associates, who are organizing to become members of UE. The union has petitioned the NLRB for representation elections for 400 workers in Vermont. Two days after the Vermont rally, UE petitioned the NLRB to represent an additional 600 Stanley workers in Laguna Niguel, CA.

Ralston Food Workers Unanimously Vote UE

January 22, 2008

Lancaster, OH 

Workers at Ralston Foods voted unanimously on January 23 to affiliate their independent union with UE. The vote was 140-0. Just a month earlier, these same workers had voted in an National Labor Relations Board election to leave a do-nothing union that had represented them poorly, and in which they did not have their own local union. By a better than 90 percent margin in the December 19 vote, more than 200 members opted to form the Independent Food Operators. There are 230 members in the new bargaining unit – they produce breakfast cereals.

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