Over the next two weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency will be taking written comments on a new regulation that will make a huge difference for the health of rail crew drivers, other rail yard workers, and rail yard communities, while creating good union jobs building new locomotives.
A new ad urging Congressman Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) to stop supporting efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare features retired UE Local 1107 officer Joni Anderson.
“I spent almost 30 years on my feet working hard at the factory,” Anderson says in the video. “I paid into Social Security with every paycheck.”
“Derrick Van Orden’s plan would slash Medicare and Social Security,” she continues in a voice-over, “but Van Orden voted for huge tax breaks for corporations.”
On Thursday, March 14, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) convened the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to discuss new legislation he has introduced to establish a 32-hour work week with no loss in pay. UE has long supported shortening the work week, and UE policy includes the demand for just such legislation.
The first panelist to testify at the hearing was UAW President Shawn Fain, whose union “raised the flag” for a 32-hour work week during their historic “stand up strike” against the Big Three automakers last year.
On February 22nd, the National Labor Network for Ceasefire held its first public event, a webinar with UAW president Shawn Fain and NEA president Becky Pringle. Shawn Fain was the first panelist to speak and took the question head on of why an international conflict should concern US workers. “Our fight is a fight for all of humanity, whether it is a contract campaign or an issue like this.”
One of the key enforcement mechanisms of job-killing trade deals is a secretive court system called Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) — and there are two actions you can take today to help root this nefarious tool of the bosses out of our trade regime.
UE is one of seven national unions which announced the formation of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire (NLNC) today, along with over two hundred local unions. The aim of the network is to “end the death and devastation” in the Middle East, and to expand support for the ceasefire among unions nationally.
“This is the biggest expression for peace by the labor movement in a full generation,” UE General President Carl Rosen told a press conference in February, as Chicago-area labor leaders successfully pressed their city council to pass a resolution in support of a ceasefire.
“In no other country is it more true that we, the workers, have a direct say in the plight of Palestinians,” declared Janvi Madhani of UE Local 197-Teachers and Researchers United at a press conference yesterday in the nation’s capital. “Our hard-earned tax dollars go directly towards the bombs being dropped in Gaza but not towards healthcare, housing, or education at home.”
Madhani was representing UE at a press conference, Unions for Ceasefire Now, organized by Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO).
In the month since UE and UFCW Local 3000 initiated a labor call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, it has been signed by unions across the country, including the Chicago Teachers Union, UAW Regions 6 and 9A, SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW), IBEW Local 520, and more. In calling for a ceasefire, U.S. unions are joining unions around the world, many of whom have also issued statements and taken action demanding an end to the violence.
State Representative Sara Innamorato, a strong UE ally since she was elected in 2018, won election as Allegheny County Executive last night, making her the most powerful local elected official in Western Pennsylvania. She will be the first woman to hold the post, which oversees a county budget of over $3 billion. Innamorato has pledged to build “a county for all,” with good jobs, strong protections for workers, and housing for all.
UE today joined over 200 other labor, consumer, health, human rights, faith, and other organizations in a letter to President Biden urging him to fulfill his stated position against Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and eliminate ISDS terms in existing free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties. ISDS is embedded in numerous trade and investment agreements and has created a global governance regime that prioritizes corporate rights over those of governments, people, and the planet.