70th UE National Convention
CONVENTION CALL
As required by the National union's constitution, the Convention Call has been mailed to all UE Locals and District Councils. If you have not received yours, please contact the UE National Office. Here is the cover letter which accompanied the call from General Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Klipple:
May 7, 2007
To: UE Locals and Regions
From: Bruce J. Klipple, General Secretary-Treasurer
Subject: Call to the 70th UE Convention
September 16-20, 2007Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Please be advised that the 70th National Convention of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) will take place Sunday, September 16 through Thursday, September 20 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh, the headquarters city of the national union, is also the center of the Eastern Region, the largest of the three regions under the recent geographic restructuring of UE, which will be hosting this year’s convention.
Since our last convention in 2005, UE has passed the seven-decade mark—our union is now 71 years old. Our convention theme "Foundation for the Future," reflects both looking back and looking forward. We look back over UE’s 70 years of struggle, to the founding principles that still guide us today; and look forward to confront the challenges of tomorrow.
Jim Matles, one of UE’s founding officers, said in 1968 that UE’s principles, expressed in the Preamble to the UE Constitution that delegates to the first UE Convention adopted in 1936, were the foundation needed for a revitalized labor movement:
All that program has to be is what the Preamble of the UE Constitution states—a labor movement based on uniting all workers, irrespective of race, creed, color, religion, sex, craft, political belief, for one purpose and one purpose only, carry on an aggressive struggle against the boss to improve our conditions…We have been fighting and bleeding and struggling for that Preamble ever since and so long as you have a boss that you work for, we will have to be on guard and keep on fighting for that Preamble to our Constitution, because the boss will never stop trying to divide us...
Looking forward, this year’s convention will confront the tough issues facing working people today and tomorrow: the attack on health care and on the right to retire in comfort and dignity; the effort to divide working people between those who were born here and those who immigrated; the waste of lives and of vital economic resources on destructive wars halfway around the world; and the fight for the right of workers to organize and bargain for a better life.
Please note that on the afternoon and evening of Saturday, September 15, each of the three UE regions have scheduled Regional Meetings in Pittsburgh, at the Convention hotel. Your Region President will be in touch with your local regarding the exact time and other details of your meeting.
We will have a lot of important and exciting work to do at this convention, and we look forward to your local’s active participation. Please note that proposed resolutions and constitutional amendments should be received at the National Office no later than August 16.