UE in the News

Workers at the Wabtec locomotive manufacturing plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, have walked off the job. Their demands get to the heart of bigger questions about the nature of work and the role workers can play in fights like climate change.

According to chief steward Leo Grzegorzewski, 95 percent of grievances that reach the final step are rejected by Wabtec, forcing the union to go to arbitration at a cost of $9,000 each time. Since 2019, around 68 grievances have reached arbitration.

The Erie workers rarely struck over grievances when the plant was owned by GE—only four times from 2005 to 2019, for a total of 13 hours—but the possibility of a strike forced management to treat them with respect. Without it, workers say contract violations are rampant and management does as it pleases.

Time is running short and the distance separating Wabtec Corp. and its union workforce in Erie seems to be substantial.

The divide is big enough that members of locals 506 and 618, which represent more than 1,400 workers at Erie's Wabtec plants, have gone so far as to authorize a strike if negotiations fail.

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains,” philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said in the 18th century. Likewise, the right to strike is the fundamental source of a union’s power, and everywhere they have signed that right away. ​“No strike clauses,” which ban workers from striking during the course of a union contract, have been ubiquitous for decades — the price, companies argue, of having a contract at all. Breaking out of this power-sucking bargain is a vital task for the labor movement, if it ever wants to be able to stand up to corporate America in a meaningful way.

The good news is that at least one union is actively trying.

But Slawson, whose union agreed to forgo a cost-of-living increase in its last four-year contract, said the union’s proposal is designed in part to make up for earning power that has been lost due to historic inflation.

“Inflation has compounded exponentially since 2019 to the point where we have lost about 19 cents on every dollar,” Slawson said.

“When you haven’t had a pay raise in four years and no cost-of-living (increase), your buying power goes down. The whole community suffers from that,” Slawson said.

Key to the UE’s appeal for graduate workers has been its respect for local autonomy, its emphasis on rank-and-file democracy, its confidence in member-driven campaigns, its focus on facilitating worker-to-worker solidarity, and its old-fashioned, militant organizing playbook that has quickly proven itself in practice.

In reference to public comments made by Rafael Santana, CEO of Wabtec, [UE Local 506 President Scott] Slawson said, “Your CEO has publicly stated that employees are your No. 1 asset. Employees need to be treated like your No. 1 asset.”

He also expressed frustration with the company's rejection of union proposals concerning matters such as work rules and temporary transfers. Disagreements over how to interpret the current four-year contract have led to an unprecedented number of grievances and arbitration cases, he said.

“They don't seem to be listening,” Slawson said. “So far, the union has not proposed anything other than avenues to alleviate the conflicts we have had over the last four years.”