In the largest council meeting since the Eastern Region was founded in 2006, over 100 delegates, guests and staff from 27 UE locals gathered on April 26 to share experiences, hear from the union’s national officers, and celebrate the union’s growth.

In his President’s Report, Eastern Region President George Waksmunski told the assembled delegates that “we are living in a time we could never have imagined as Americans,” with daily attacks on constitutional rights of freedom of speech and assembly, on due process, and on labor rights. “How long will it be until employers start just refusing to bargain?” he asked, reflecting the very real danger that employers will begin to emulate the Trump administration in simply ignoring collective bargaining agreements.

However, he said, in UE “we do know the way: we have the preamble [to the UE constitution], and it is our guiding light. We are all one, we do not discriminate, we are the working class and that’s what unites us.”

First Contract at Cornell, New Organizing in Higher Ed

Three leaders from UE Local 300-Cornell Graduate Students United reported on their local’s recent, successful first contract struggle at Cornell University.

Left to right: Kara Zielinski, Jawuanna McAllister, and Ewa Nizalowska of UE Local 300-CGSU.

Kara Zielinski said that Local 300 was the first graduate worker union in the country to win contract language allowing the union to grieve discipline that is not (according to the employer) related to their employment. This is crucially important for graduate workers, who can be subjected to “academic” discipline which nonetheless results in their losing employment. The local also won union shop, despite the employer insisting that they would never agree to it.

As Jawuanna McAllister explained, these wins were made possible because, when the local launched a strike pledge, over 1,000 workers signed the pledge within 48 hours. Within two bargaining sessions the employer, after months of stalling, had agreed to union shop. The following week the union was able to secure just cause protections.

“We’re very proud that we were able to get our members to claim their own power,” added Ewa Nizalowska, who emphasized the power of rank-and-file democracy.

In addition to Local 300, the council heard reports from researchers and administrative staff who are organizing with UE at two universities in the region.

“Just because you win a contract, doesn’t mean the battle is over”

During shop reports, Local 115 Chief Steward Jose Rivera described how the members of his local, who settled their first contract with the Refresco bottling company in 2023 after a long struggle, have been learning that “just because you win a contract, doesn’t mean the battle is over.” Since that contract, Refresco workers have mobilized to win reinstatement of a fired union leader [1] and the withdrawal of a confusing vacation request form [2]. Local 119 Vice President Amanda Hahn, whose local represents 200 privatized paraprofessionals and other school workers in Winslow Township, New Jersey agreed, noting that “just because we have a union doesn’t mean our fight is over.”

Leaders from three of UE’s new grad worker locals, all of whom are working under their first UE contracts, gave further evidence of the need for constant, aggressive struggle. Nadia Zaragoza of Local 256 (MIT-Graduate Student Union) reported on a grievance which won a 4.25 percent raise in a department that had been designating Ph.D. students as Masters’ students during their first two years, after 75 percent of the department signed on to the grievance. ​​Anne Merrill and Anish Chedalavada of Local 197-Teachers and Researchers United at Johns Hopkins University reported that their local had recently won a class action grievance and back pay for a group of workers who work over the summer.

Anne Merrill and Anish Chedalavada, Local 197-TRU.

The leaders of both locals also spoke about efforts to protect international workers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as did Kai Herron of Local 261-Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, ICE has detained many international graduate workers at universities across the country solely for the “crime” of protesting Israel’s military assault on Gaza.

Melissa Pennington of UE Local 203, which represents workers at the City Market Co-op in Burlington, Vermont, described her local’s efforts to work with management to ensure that their immigrant members are protected from ICE. Margaret Dabrowski of Local 222, who works as a dispatcher in New Britain, Connecticut, noted proudly that New Britain’s police department has a longstanding policy of not cooperating with ICE.

“We’ve had a rough year”

The effects of Trump administration policies are also being felt at the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, reported Local 228 President Jane Shepard-O'Connor. “We’ve had a rough year,” she said. The federal contractor that operates the center has taken advantage of the Trump administration’s order for federal workers to return to the office in order to force Local 228 members, many of whom have been fully remote since the Covid-19 pandemic, to also return to the office. The local is currently in effects bargaining over the change.

On a more positive note, Alison Oniboni, newly elected as president of Local 613 at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children in Pittsburgh, described how her local has boosted membership participation through a “UE Education Series” of lunchtime and Zoom meetings. At the meetings, she and other Local 613 leaders educated their co-workers about UE structure, being an active member, how to protect jobs proactively and in the moment, how to get a good contract, and other topics.

Francesca Fazzini (left) and Alison Obiboni (speaking), Local 613.

McArthur Mention, Local 243.

McArthur Mention said that during Local 243’s recent contract negotiations with Sargent Lock in New Haven, Connecticut, the company did not even raise the possibility of cuts to workers’ healthcare — and that by the end of the three-year contract, it will have been 15 years since the company last did so.

Unlike Sargent Lock, Wabtec is pushing for healthcare givebacks in their current negotiations with Local 610 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, reported President Ian Glasgow. “Our members have told us very vivdly that we are not going to accept that kind of a raise in our healthcare,” he said. Their contract expires on April 30, and the local’s members have unanimously authorized a strike if necessary.

“Crony capitalism”

In his national officer report, UE General President Carl Rosen suggested that the “momentous changes being carried out by the Trump administration” represent “a shift in the way the capitalist class is using the federal government.” Traditionally, he said, capitalists have used the government “as a committee of the whole in order to ensure that the profit-making system is kept safe and secure.” This is what has traditionally made U.S. capitalism particularly strong.

“Trump is trying to replace this committee-of-the-whole approach where they worry about the common good of the capitalist class with one where only specific capitalists are taken care of,” Rosen said — and the capitalists who will be taken care of are those who pledge loyalty and financial benefit to Trump personally. “This type of behavior is sometimes called crony capitalism,” he explained, “where it is the cronies, or close associates, of the top ruler in the country who get taken care of at everyone else’s expense.”

He pointed out that “Although some political leaders are content to talk about this simply as a struggle over fascism or authoritarianism vs. democracy, we need to recognize that underneath that it is really a fight of the ultra-rich oligarchs against the working class. Throughout history, capitalists have been willing to tolerate democracy only when it doesn’t interfere with their ability to make profits.” He suggested that “the purposefully vicious and retaliatory attacks by the Trump administration on those who oppose their agenda, or on the groups they think are easiest to scapegoat, like immigrants, are intended to terrorize people into not speaking up. And so democracy is curtailed in order to further enrich a select set of corporations at the expense of the working class.”

UE Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkerlaker also addressed the regional council meeting, giving an overview of constitutional amendments that will be considered at the upcoming convention. One set of proposed amendments will restore financial autonomy to the regions, while another will continue moving UE’s per capita system to one in which everyone pays a proportionate share of their income to maintain the union’s strength.

Council Endorses Pittsburgh Mayor, May Day Actions

Delegates voted unanimously to endorse Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who addressed the 2023 UE convention and supported Locals 506 and 618 in their 2023 strike against Wabtec, for re-election. They also voted to endorse the actions being held across the country on May Day [3], and a May 31 national day of action for Medicare for All. They made donations of $500 each to the Southern Workers Assembly, the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, and the Deb Gornall Scholarship Fund.

President Waksmunski, Vice President Antwon Gibson, Local 610, and Financial Secretary Scott Slawson, Local 506, were all re-elected, and Karleen Torrance, Local 618, was elected as recording secretary. Rich DeBlasio, Local 106, David Bedore, Local 123, Patryce Perry, Local 150, Sandy Peeples, Local 197, Gary Stuard, Local 203, Margaret Dabrowski, Local 222, Jane Shepard-O’Connor, Local 228, Dean Pacileo, Local 243, Lauren Chua, Local 256, John Pruss, Local 267, Bud Decker, Local 329, Mike Giles, Local 506, Alison Oniboni, Local 613, Janet Gray, Local 618, Sharon Johnson, Local 625, Brian Desanto, Local 642, Fritz Geist, Local 667, OJ Jones, Local 683, Andrew Bonus, Local 684, Tony Hall, Local 690, and Sophie Nighswander, Local 696 were all elected to the executive board. Dabrowski, Pacileo, Chua, Decker and Hall will represent the region on the National Union’s General Executive Board; Dabrowski and Chua were chosen as regional delegates to the upcoming national convention. Buffy Smith, Local 506 and Jeff Kohler, Local 625, were elected as trustees, and Dominic Harris, Local 150, was elected as alternate trustee.

UE General President Carl Rosen (left) swears in the Eastern Region officers, executive board and trustees.