UE NEWS Updates

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Press Roundup: UE Locals Take Action to Address Pandemic

April 30, 2020

UE locals from coast to coast have been taking action to make sure workers’ voices are heard as decisions are being made which impact our health, our jobs, and our ability to provide for our families. The next issue of the UE NEWS will feature extensive coverage of local activities, but in the meantime we have put together a selection of press coverage that UE locals have received over the past month. (Not a UE member? You can still subscribe to the UE NEWS for as little as $5/year.)

May Day 2020: Working People Must Unite Across Borders

April 30, 2020

This year, we celebrate International Workers Day as the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the central importance of workers to our society. It is the labor of frontline workers — healthcare workers, grocery and food workers, sanitation workers and others — that is keeping people alive right now, not the wealth accumulated by capitalists.

UE and Unifor call for urgent action for workers and the planet

April 22, 2020

As working people and representatives of trade unions, we join environmental activists in marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with alarm and concern for the future of our planet. The time to fight for immediate and bold climate action is now, but the needed economic transition will not take place without strong guarantees for worker rights and good jobs for all.

UE Officers Call on Labor Movement To Organize Worker Fightback in the Face of the COVID-19 Crisis

April 10, 2020

“Life-and-death circumstances are being imposed on U.S. workplaces and workers are increasingly responding by standing up, fighting back and walking out, but frequently without the support of organized labor,” UE’s three national officers wrote in an open letter in In These Times. “Unions have a choice right now: Hunker down and try to ride out the COVID-19 storm or put our shoulders to the task of assisting workers in their fight to either improve conditions on the job or shut their workplaces down.”

Action and information on COVID-19

March 20, 2020

As our nation and our world takes measures to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, workers need effective rank-and-file unions more than ever, to make sure workers’ voices are heard as decisions are being made which impact our health, our jobs, and our ability to provide for our families. Visit UE's COVID-19 information page for suggestions for maintaining local union functioning, demands locals should consider making on employers, and highlights of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201), which includes measures to cover COVID-19 testing, provide paid sick leave, strengthen unemployment insurance benefits, and keep working people from going without food.

Local 150 Rallies Demand Medicare for All, Union Rights

March 3, 2020

UE Local 150 held rallies for Medicare for All and union rights in six cities across North Carolina yesterday, the day before that state’s presidential primary. UE members who work for city governments, the state of North Carolina and the Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant were joined members of the Southern Workers Assembly, Raise Up for $15, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and community supporters in “pickets for health.”

The Forgotten Role of Medicare in Desegregating US Healthcare

February 28, 2020

The passage of Medicare in 1965 was a great victory for the US working class. Prior to Medicare, less than half of the elderly had any kind of medical insurance, and most working people struggled to pay for hospitalization and other major medical costs after they retired. Less well-known is the fact that Medicare also dealt a serious blow to racial segregation.

Local 170 Holds President's Day Political Action Day

February 26, 2020

UE Local 170 members went to the West Virginia state capitol on President's Day (February 17) to meet with legislators. They checked on the status of bills written by the union, which include pay increases, safer working conditions, and fighting back against privatization of state jobs.

Depart of Highways (DOH) workers wore their neon yellow uniforms in support of a mass grievance they are involved in right now.

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