The past five days, we have been counting down the top five UE NEWS stories of 2025 on social media. Here they are!
#5 First Contract at Cornell
Over 100 Local 300 members attending an open bargaining session in October 2024.
Three thousand graduate workers represented by UE Local 300-Cornell Graduate Students United settled their first contract in April. The contract set several new standards for the industry, including due process rights for academic standing and the right to grieve non-appointment related discipline — measures which limit bosses’ ability to do an end-run around just cause. With this agreement, the vast majority of the wave of tens of thousands of graduate workers who joined UE in recent years are now under contract.
Graduate workers at the University of Minnesota (UE Local 1105) and Stanford University (UE Local 1043) also saw their contracts go into effect in January of this year.
#4 NLRB Victory for 1,200 Northwestern Postdocs
On August 25 and 26, approximately 1,200 postdoctoral workers, or “postdocs,” at Northwestern University in Chicago and Evanston, IL voted by a margin of 515 to 13 to join the Northwestern University Postdoctoral Union-UE. Postdoctoral workers do crucial research work at our nation’s universities, often for low wages and with little job security. This election, the first group of postdocs to join UE, marks the expansion of UE organization into a new area of higher education.
“Our work conditions are precarious and underappreciated,” NUPU-UE leader Julia Fadjukov told the UE National Convention, which was meeting in Chicago as the NLRB election was happening. “We have little control over our job security because we are essentially year-to-year contract workers, entirely dependent on external funding. And for a majority of us, the annual arrangement also means our immigration status is just as precarious.”
#3 New Seasons Labor Union Affiliation and First Contract
Also in August, the members of the New Seasons Labor Union, which represents approximately 850 workers at ten stores of the New Seasons Market in and around Portland, Oregon, voted to affiliate their independent, worker-led union with UE.
Shortly after the affiliation vote, NSLU Co-Chair Ava Robins told the UE Convention how “Three years ago, workers at a New Seasons filed for an election, as an independent union [because] we were tired of seeing our working conditions decline, and we were tired of seeing big unions failing to actually fight the bosses and stop that decline. And so we took matters into our own hands, [and] unlike so many drives at our stores before this one won ... because whether we knew it at the time or not, we were organizing in the most powerful way. And that way is worker to worker. It’s militant and it’s rank and file-led.”
In December, NSLU, now UE Local 1010, ratified a first collective bargaining agreement, which provides significant wage increases and improved working conditions. The lowest-paid members will see an immediate raise of 16.5 percent, and the median wage for represented employees will rise to $23.37/hr. More than 95 percent of the members will make over $20/hr. The minimum rate for new hires will start at $19/hr and adjust to compensate for inflation through annual cost of living adjustments.
“We hope that this contract can raise standards for the whole industry, and show that the way to make our jobs better is to be willing to fight,” said Local 1010-NSLU Co-Chair. Norah Rivera.
#2 UE Locals Continue to Bargain Strong Contracts Even as Trump Administration Emboldens Employers
Local 1123 members take a strike vote on the shop floor.
“Bargaining conditions since Trump took office have shifted dramatically,” said UE Local 1123 President Charlie King, reflecting on his local’s experience bargaining a new three-year contract in April. “Companies feel emboldened to demand take-aways and our solidarity is the only thing stopping them.”
King’s local wasn’t the only one facing demands for concessions in bargaining this year. In manufacturing, Locals 234, 610, 622, and 1421 all faced, and fought off, demands for concessions, instead winning significant improvements for their members. In the case of Locals 1107 and 1135, the companies cited the effects of Trump’s tariffs to justify their demands — but members did not back down. Locals 106 and 1009 both won improvements the locals had been seeking for years; Local 329 won the second-highest raises ever, along with improvements to overtime protection and insurance; and Local 243 maintained their 100-percent employer-paid health insurance.
At the Lanterman Regional Center in Los Angeles, the employer cited the Trump administration’s massive cuts to federal spending in their refusal to bargain a fair contract with UE Local 1018, provoking a 12-week strike which won significant raises and resulted in a stronger local. Coordinated bargaining between Locals 228 and 728 both won historic gains and the reversal of actions the company took against leaders of both locals, including a firing, a suspension, and the filing of legal charges. Locals 741 and 799, which represent school district workers in Ohio, were both able to win satisfactory contracts despite cuts to education funding at both the federal and state levels. Also in the service sector, Local 255 was able to protect its members from the worst effects of the collapse of the healthcare “market” in Vermont, and Locals 696 and 792 won contracts that their members described as “life-changing.”
In higher education, UE’s oldest graduate worker local, Local 896-COGS, both made gains in their contract despite Iowa’s incredibly restrictive public-sector law, and fended off political attacks on academic freedom. Local 1466-UGW at the University of New Mexico won the highest wage increases negotiated by any union at the university in their second contract. And among rail crew drivers, Local 1477 successfully negotiated a first contract with Hallcon rival PTI after PTI took over the operation of two yards in Colorado, lining their contract expiration up with Local 1077, which also negotiated a contract with PTI this year covering several yards in northern California.
#1 Convention Celebrates UE Growth With Many First-Time Delegates
UE’s 79th Convention was held in Chicago in August with the theme “One Voice, One Fight, One Future.” It was the largest UE convention in recent memory, with over 150 delegates and alternates, joined by more than 60 staff and guests, and almost certainly the convention with the largest percentage of new delegates — for almost 70 percent of delegates and alternates, it was their first time representing their local at a national UE convention.
The organizing report featured reports from UE organizing across multiple economic sectors, including among higher education workers in Chicago, upstate New York and Massachusetts, grocery workers in Oregon, public-sector workers in Virginia, and Wabtec workers in Texas.
Convention delegates unanimously adopted five resolutions dealing with racism, women’s rights, immigrant rights, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and disability rights. Over 50 delegates, alternates, and guests rose to speak on these resolutions, addressing both the harms caused by various forms of bigotry and the importance of talking openly about them in order to promote healing and forge working-class unity.
Delegates also demanded an end to genocide in Palestine and rallied against the control billionaires exert over American society. They heard remarks from international guests, Senator Bernie Sanders, and National Nurses United Executive Director Puneet Maharaj. And, in contested elections, the convention chose new leadership for the national union.