From June 12-14, thousands of union members from across the country, including over 30 from UE, gathered in Chicago for the 2026 Labor Notes Conference. The conference this year focused on the labor movement taking an offensive stance against not only the boss but broader authoritarianism.
Many UE members and staff participated in workshops. UE Director of Strategic Programs Mark Meinster and UE General Counsel Margot Nikitas shared their expertise in a workshop entitled “How to Break Your No-Strike Clause (And Live To Tell About It).” Local 255 President Toby Madrone applied real experience from recent local actions in a session on “How to March on the Boss.” Rendi Rogers from Local 261 spoke on a panel entitled “Find Your Workplace Leverage – And Use It” about strategic workplace mapping. Retired UE General President Carl Rosen spoke on a panel entitled, “Fighting for Good Healthcare for Working People,” where he talked about how the working class must fight for not only good health insurance in our contracts but against corporate control of our healthcare. Unfortunately, many UE participants were unable to make the conference due to inclement weather, including UE International Representative Kass Ottley who was scheduled to speak at the “Race and Labor” workshop.
Local 1186 member Korey Peterson said, “I would absolutely recommend it to everyone to go at least once and feel the energy of the labor movement coalesce there. It was really powerful.” Peterson talked about the many different workshops and panels they were able to attend, saying that they learned a lot from other labor leaders. Peterson said that in one of the workshops they attended on turning grievances into a campaign, union members were able to actively help other participants find solutions to workplace problems.
August Villanueva, a member of Local 696, said this was their second time attending the Labor Notes conference. Villanueva said that they were able to get a broader overview of the labor movement this time around because, “We all depend on each other and it was nice to see how this plays out within other types of labor in the movement.” When talking about their learning experience at the various workshops, Villanueva said, “Learning is hard and embarrassing and awkward but it is doable. Having places like Labor Notes where conversations can be heavy and volatile and where we can be messy and ask questions and learn is important. I don't know if this progress could have happened elsewhere outside of Labor Notes.”
UE members attended a lunchtime exchange with Japanese union Zenroren where the Japanese and American union members were able to share stories of struggle and success with each other. Western Region President Ramona Malczynski said that UE members learned about how Zenroren implements anti-war and anti-imperial stances in their union work. Ways to support a free Palestine were also discussed.
Peterson said it was helpful to learn about organizing in another country with a completely different culture and political climate. They said the labor movement needs more international collaboration. “It was great to hear that they all bargain at the same time in the spring to have collective power. There was an overarching idea that we need to collectively bargain at the same time like they do in Japan.”
One of the repeated themes during the conference was learning from Minneapolis’s mobilization to kick ICE out of their city. Local 255 member Tim Rousseau said, “The worker's struggle is a political struggle, and political struggles are workers' struggles. The labor movement needs working-class politics and a political project beyond nuts-and-bolts unionism in order to reinvigorate itself and build a mass politics capable of asserting itself on the national stage.” Malczynski added, “A lot of people were talking about how to organize with the community. People have learned from Minneapolis and talked about how unions and workers can engage with community groups and combine labor demands with broader social demands.”
Local 197 Steward Marie Pearce told the UE NEWS that the conference reinvigorated her energy for organizing. She said, “Hearing stories of workers fighting hard and winning big despite really aggressive unionbusting was really inspiring. I learned a lot about how other unions have approached organizing for solidarity with Palestine and have been able to bring many ideas back to my local.”
Local 1186 Steward Matthew Thompson said, “Overall, it was a really good feeling to be around other brothers, sisters, and union comrades. It was great getting together to fight the boss. I felt really inspired and re-energized. After a while, when things aren’t going your way at work, you can sometimes feel down and hearing from different people and their wins, hearing about the fight that some of our grocery store siblings or union siblings deal with makes me really appreciate UE and re-energized me about the fight in our own fight in the workplace.”
Thompson added, “It’s good to be in a conference of union brothers and sisters because the boss goes to conferences to learn how to screw us over and now we can get back at them and learn from each other.”