UE NEWS Updates

Members of UE Local 248 who work as cafeteria workers and custodians for the Old Rochester Regional School District won a 10.5 percent wage increase over the life of their new four-year contract. Members will receive 2.75 percent raises the first and second year and 2.5 percent in the third and fourth year. They also won protections against overwork. When a substitute cannot be provided for the cafeteria, each person working will get a two dollar increase for the time worked.

President Trump signaled his hostility to workers’ rights within his first weeks of office, taking the unprecedented step of firing a sitting member of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwynne Wilcox. This left the board without a quorum, and therefore unable to issue decisions. The UE NEWS pointed out at the time that this means that “Employers who break the law, or who simply refuse to bargain with their unions, will now be able to appeal any decisions against them to a board that cannot make a ruling.”

UE Local 300-Cornell Graduate Students United members Marguerite Pacheco and Ewa Nizalowska describe their local’s successful first contract campaign in this article for the UE NEWS.

Locals 203 and 267 have both made significant strides towards keeping their members safe from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Local 203, which represents grocery workers at City Market, came to a verbal understanding with their employer earlier this year that no employee information would be given to ICE. They were also guaranteed by their employer that ICE would not be allowed to enter private areas of the workplace and would not be permitted entrance without a warrant.