July 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of UE's first contract in Vermont, with the Jones and Lamson Machine Company in Springfield. Chartered in October 1943 to organize Springfield's machine tool industry, Local 218 won its first NLRB elections, at Vermont Foundries and Jones and Lamson, early in 1944, concluding first contracts with both companies in July.
When 1700 UE members, members of Locals 506 and 618, went on strike for nine days in the bitterly cold Erie winter, they weren’t just fighting for themselves. They were fighting for the future of their community.
On February 25, Wabtec Corporation took over operations of the Erie locomotive plant from General Electric, and immediately demanded a laundry list of concessions, including a two-tier wage structure — that new hires would come in at permanently lower wages, as much as 38 percent lower than what current UE members make.
Seventy years ago, on December 10, the General Assembly of the new United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 58 member countries committed to respecting a wide range of civil, political and economic rights as human rights, rights that all people have simply by virtue of being human. December 10, International Human Rights Day, commemorates the adoption of this document.
As we know, UE is now 82 years old, founded at a March 1936 meeting in Buffalo by rank-and-file delegates from a dozen plants in the electrical equipment and radio manufacturing industries. But in each of the plants represented at that founding convention, and in the other plants where workers formed UE locals in the months and years that followed, a history of struggle going back many years led to the formation of UE.
Ten years ago today, members of UE Local 1110 made history by occupying their factory, Republic Windows and Doors. They captured the imagination of a nation reeling from financial collapse, won an endorsement of their cause from the president-elect, and forced one of the nation’s most powerful banks to come to the table and negotiate.
Every election, politicians promise jobs. Regardless of who wins, good jobs keep getting scarcer in most UE communities. Is there anything else that working people can do to create — and more importantly, keep — good jobs in our communities?
The problem facing working people in the U.S. is not just lack of jobs, but lack of good jobs. UE's Director of Communications takes a look at what kinds of policies produce good jobs, UE's history of fighting for good jobs and a democratic economy, and some of the bold, visionary proposals for good jobs being proposed by UE allies today.
On Monday, May 21, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that effectively strips nonunion workers of any effective means of enforcing their legal rights to minimum wages, overtime, protection from sexual harassment, or any other labor rights.
As the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) eagerly anticipated the June 1947 enactment of the anti-union Taft-Hartley law, they were also celebrating another, less well-remembered victory over labor. In May, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which had regulated prices of consumer goods during and after World War II, had closed its doors.
Fifty years ago, African-American sanitation workers in Memphis stood up for dignity, striking to demand recognition of their union — and their humanity.
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