Republican cuts to education funding at both the federal and state level are coming at high cost to many Ohioans, including Ohio’s children and the UE members who dedicate their lives to the public education system. But in contract negotiations this spring, both UE Locals 741 and 799 were able to win real improvements for their members.
The ongoing organizational renewal and substantial growth of the United Electrical Workers (UE) is one of the most distinctly remarkable stories in the U.S. labor movement in decades. Few other unions have suffered such losses from state repression, raiding attacks by opportunist unions, and the catastrophic effects of corporate job relocation — and survived. Of the original 42 unions who comprised the founding roster of the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) in 1938, a grand total of eight survive intact today. UE is one of them. The remainder have passed out of existence, been destroyed by repression and employer attacks, or been merged into larger unions and lost forever.
In early April, UE Communications Director Jonathan Kissam presented remarks at a panel about the legacy of labor historian David Montgomery, who was a rank-and-file member of UE Local 475 before he became an historian. Kissam spoke about Montgomery’s life-long connection to the labor movement and popular struggles, and how that engagement provides a model for how intellectuals can make their work relevant to the public, and to workers in particular. The panel was part of the Organization of American Historians’ 2025 Conference on American History.
Last summer, the University of Illinois Press published A David Montgomery Reader: Essays on Capitalism and Worker Resistance, a collection of essays, some of them previously unpublished, by the late historian. Montgomery — a former UE member who addressed no less than four UE conventions — transformed the study of U.S. labor history in the 1960s and 70s. His work moved the focus of the discipline away from institutions and “great men” and to the way rank-and-file workers resisted dictatorial bosses and the insatiable demands of capital in their workplaces and communities.
Eighty years ago today, trade unions from around the world met for the World Labor Conference in London. While German V-2 rockets fell around them, delegates from 35 countries discussed the role of labor in winning World War II, destroying fascism, and ensuring a peaceful and prosperous world for working people in the aftermath of the war.
A new show of his work makes clear that Ralph Fasanella, the UE organizer who took up painting, was interested in every aspect of working class life, not just union struggles. Although he is known for his large-scale paintings of strikes, union meetings, and urban working-class life, this show also includes paintings of people at home and at the beach, vacationing, eating hot dogs at the iconic Nathan’s in Brooklyn, and enjoying America’s favorite pastime.
The last five days on social media, we’ve been counting down the top five UE NEWS stories of 2024. Click here to read them!
Seventy-five years ago today, what was perhaps the most dramatic national convention in UE history opened in Cleveland.
In the months leading up to the convention, the corporate and government forces that sought to wipe out UE’s brand of militant, rank-and-file unionism were gathering steam. The UAW and the Steelworkers had been taking advantage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, to raid UE shops. And within the union, a faction that wanted to abandon UE’s principles of aggressive struggle, rank-and-file control, political independence, international solidarity, and uniting all workers were preparing to try to wrest control of the union at the upcoming convention by accusing the union of being “communist-dominated.”
In his new book Blue Collar Empire the labor historian, journalist, and union activist Jeff Schuhrke documents how many AFL and CIO leaders not only participated in witch hunts against UE and other militant unions in the U.S., but actively conspired with the U.S. government to undermine militant unions around the world. Indeed, they were not only willing participants in the government’s crusade against so-called “communist” unions, but in some cases were even more enthusiastic about that crusade than the government itself.
August 27 marks the 75th anniversary of the Peekskill Riots, two attacks by right wing mobs on concert-goers in Peekskill, in upstate New York. The audience was composed of union members, including UE members, and civil rights activists, and they had gathered to watch popular Black singer and actor Paul Robeson perform.
If you like what you read, please consider subscribing to the UE NEWS — for as little as $5/year you can support great labor journalism and receive the print edition of the UE NEWS four times per year.
You can also sign up to receive monthly UE NEWS Bulletins via email, or follow UE on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.