UE NEWS Updates

Member involvement paid off in this year’s contract negotiations for Local 1160 — their new four-year contract with Roth Pump includes hefty first-year wage increases, as well as improvements to the 401(k) and the way that members move through the pay scale.

UE unequivocally condemns the removal of Bolivia’s elected president Evo Morales by the military on Sunday, and the violence carried out by the military and right-wing paramilitary forces against Indigenous people and political activists in that country. This coup is just the latest example of an attack on a progressive Latin American government by “big business forces supported by U.S. administrations”, as denounced by UE policy, attacks which have as their goal the fattening of corporate profits at the expense of the region’s workers and environment.

UE Local 625 member Sharon Johnston calls her company’s healthcare plan “The Don’t Get Sick Plan,” because of the high out-of-pocket expenses. “I’d like to go to the dermatologist because my father had cancer,” says Johnston, but “that’s a six-hundred dollar bill there. I can’t afford that, that’s my paycheck.”

After three months and a marathon, almost 19-hour final bargaining session, Local 203 reached a new three-year contract with City Market in the early hours of October 1. The contract will increase the starting rate for the lowest-paid job classifications from $11 to $13, with a new wage scale that significantly increases wages for the lowest-paid workers.