UE in the News

On Monday night, Refresco workers along with immigrant rights group Wind of the Spirit and community residents held signs outside the factory and called on the company to start negotiations with their union.

Cesar Moreira, one of the employees and a union organizer, joined colleagues at the rally following his evening shift. Moreira said they braved the cold because Refresco "continues to put excuses" to begin negotiations and recognize their union. 

"This was a demonstration to put pressure on the company to sit down at the table with us," said Moreira in Spanish. "The lawyers are not letting us have a dialogue with Refresco and reach an agreement with them. We're not asking for 100% or 80% of the company's earnings, we're asking for basic things." 

“I love my class and I love teaching, but every single time I run into a psychiatric emergency, I have to ask myself, how much is my life worth?” she said, while sharing her experience during a forum on graduate student wellness on Nov. 11. 

The forum was part of a series of events organized by the NMSU Graduate Workers United to highlight three main issues they are organizing around: no tuition remission, inadequate or no health care and low wages. They also want better grievance procedures.

A rally on Tuesday will be their latest effort to draw attention to their fight.

Scott Slawson, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America at Wabtec's Erie plant, said the union has been aware of the agreement for some time.

What happened on Monday, he said, was "They got the ink dry on the paper."

Recently, he said, the company has called about 80 union members back to work.

When 250 Refresco workers at a bottling plant in Wharton, New Jersey, won a union election at the end of June, organizer Anthony Diaz thought he and his co-workers would soon start negotiating their contract.

But that hasn’t happened. Instead, Refresco, known as the world’s largest independent bottler, launched an aggressive legal operation, employing a former high-ranking official with the National Labor Relations Board to delay certification.

“Things are going to slow because of Refresco’s tricks,” referring to aggressive legal tactics used by the firm “to delay the process for us to get certification of the union and to start negotiating a contract,” said Diaz, who led the union campaign and has worked at the plant since 2006. “They lost the election and they’re playing games with appealing the decision to delay the process.”

Indiana University graduate students are taking the next steps to unionize, as the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition is organizing an attempt to join United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

Building on the impact of its past fee strikes, the IGWC members hope joining a union might bolster their fight for increased compensation, lower fees and improved communication with IU leadership.

"At this point we are seeking more than just a guarantee of dialogue," said Cole Nelson, an IU graduate worker and one of the IGWC organizers. "We're not looking for administrators to be advocates for graduate workers. Rather, we're looking for a permanent resolution to the fact that graduate workers, time and time again, are being charged increasingly by the university while receiving substandard compensation."

Hollis and Purvis helped drum up support from several groups, including UE Local 150, the union that represents many public employees across the state, and last May formed the Valley Proteins Blue Collar Workers Organizing Committee. For Hollis, who left his job at Valley Proteins last summer but remains active with the committee, the effort was a direct response to what he calls the company's "exploitation of workers."