Local 222 Settles Three New Contracts
Three sublocals of UE Local 222, a statewide amalgamated public-sector local, have settled new contracts in the past six months.
Three sublocals of UE Local 222, a statewide amalgamated public-sector local, have settled new contracts in the past six months.
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.
The UE General Executive Board (GEB) met in Pittsburgh on May 28 and 29. The union’s highest decision-making body in between conventions, the GEB is made up of eight elected rank-and-file members from each geographical region, along with the three national officers.
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 Office Manager Joanne Caporoso will be retiring this summer, after 14 years helming the union’s national office in Pittsburgh.
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.
UE Local 150-North Carolina Public Service Workers Union held their annual political action day on May 13. Local chapter members met at the state legislative building to demand a stop to recent attacks on the state health plan, pay, and safe staffing.
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.
Local 642, whose members work for the nonprofit Harborcreek Youth Services, negotiated a one-year agreement with their employer in May. Similar to the one-year contract they signed last year, this contract was negotiated in the context of financial difficulties caused by the closing of their largest unit, after a temp employee was found to have been sexually abusing clients.
From April 25 to May 10, five members of UE Local 150 traveled to Cuba as part of the International May Day Brigade. The brigade, organized by the National Network on Cuba, consisted of approximately 100 people from across the U.S.
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