UE NEWS Updates

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, universally known as “Lula,” defeated far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro on October 25 to win a fourth term. A former metalworker and union leader who led strikes in defiance of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, Lula was elected to the presidency in 2002, 2006, and again in 2022 as the candidate of the Workers’ Party, a working-class party formed by the country’s unions in 1980.

Workers will bear the cost of higher interest rates; rising energy prices erase all wage gains since Trump’s inauguration; McDonald’s using AI to gouge consumers; corporate profit, federal disinvestment, and climate change are supercharging water rate hikes; damaging new rules on student loans take effect; and scammers rob SNAP recipients while Trump Administration does little to stop them.

Members of Local 1186, representing Willy Street Co-op in Madison, WI, have been strategically aligning resources and strengthening connections with other labor and community organizations as part of a collective effort to prepare for potential threats to democracy, writes Local 1186 steward Jason Fuhrman. “We have been working to circulate and collect pledge cards for labor rights, with escalating actions to which the signer can commit. These actions range from simply voting for pro-labor candidates and phone banking to being a constitutional observer and participating in a national economic blackout in the event that the elections are compromised.”

“Our union is a powerful tool that we must utilize to attain a society and a world that is truly equitable and just for all,” declared Local 1186 Vice President Michele McCoy during the Western Region council meeting’s political action report. McCoy and Local 1107 President Kellye Allen were reporting on resolutions that their locals, both located in Wisconsin, had passed about defending labor and democratic rights in the upcoming midterm elections.