UE Statements

The “blue tsunami" of Democratic wins in Tuesday’s midterm elections was a stunning rebuke of division, war, and corruption, and of the corporate crime wave that Republican rule has enabled. However, the credit for these wins belongs not to the Democratic Party — whose leadership has offered at best tepid resistance to the Republican agenda over the past two years — but to the working people across the country who have spent the last two years organizing and fighting back in their communities and workplaces.

The fight to maintain open, free, and fair elections, and the work to build a strong resistance to the voter intimidation led and orchestrated by the oligarchs and their puppets in government, is not only necessary to protect what exists of true democracy in our government, but is also an opportunity to bring working people together to build an even stronger force for change in our country and the world.

On the morning of July 7, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents murdered a Houston construction worker on his way to work. Less than a week later, ICE agents murdered another man in Biddeford, Maine, who was also on his way to work.

Meeting in Pittsburgh this week, UE’s General Executive Board debated and approved a statement on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. The board declared that “The U.S. labor movement must be prepared to fight for AI to be used to improve people’s lives, not to drive mass unemployment, climate disaster, war, and increased profits for the ultrarich.” They conclude with a call “for public and worker control of Artificial Intelligence technologies, and for the end of their use for mass surveillance and as weapons of war, in order to ensure that AI tools are used for the benefit of working people and not to further enrich the capitalist class.”

The Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Louisiana v Callais, which effectively guts the one remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, is a blatantly racist attack on Black people that will hurt all workers. As a result of this decision, Black voters and other voters of color will be disenfranchised, and anti-labor politicians will find it even easier to gerrymander their way into permanent majorities.

On Saturday President Trump, who ran for office pledging to keep the U.S. out of military entanglements overseas, ordered extensive military strikes on Iran. These strikes are unconstitutional and reckless, and will make the world a more dangerous place on many levels. They come at great cost in both human lives and treasure.

The UE General Executive Board has issued a statement condemning the murders of Alex Jeffrey Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, demanding that their killers be held legally accountable, calling for a no vote on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that is up for Senate approval, and demanding that Congress abolish ICE entirely.

Our government’s escalating attacks on Venezuela are unconstitutional, immoral, and a massive waste of resources. The idea that Venezuela represents a military threat to the U.S. is patently absurd; the use of the U.S. military to carry out lethal attacks on fishing boats and seize oil tankers amounts to simple murder and piracy. We demand that our government immediately cease these attacks, and that Congress exercise its power to reign in this overreach by the executive branch.

UE’s Higher Education Conference Board released a statement today calling on universities to reject the so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” being promoted by the Trump administration, which asks universities to exchange autonomy for preferential funding. On Monday at 7pm ET / 4pm PT, the conference board will be hosting a “Workers Over Deals” webinar to discuss how higher ed workers can push back through collective organizing.