Former UE General Secretary-Treasurer Amy Newell will be the featured speaker at the inaugural Florence Criley Luncheon at this year’s UE Convention. The luncheon will be held on Monday, August 26 during the lunch recess.
UE joins the rest of the progressive labor movement in mourning the passing of ATU President Larry Hanley earlier this month.
Hanley addressed UE's 2015 Convention, sharing with UE members his admiration for UE and gratitude to UE for publishing Labor’s Untold Story, which his union uses extensively.
Chanting “One Union, One Tier” and carrying a banner reading “Don't Derail Our Future,” over 50 UE members and allies picketed Wabtec's shareholder meeting in downtown Pittsburgh on Friday, May 17. Wabtec continues to demand a “two-tier” wage structure at the Erie locomotive plant where members of UE Locals 506 and 618 are in negotiations for a new contract.
Retired UE cartoonist Gary Huck and his long-time partner-in-crime Mike Konopacki have produced another book of political and labor cartoons, their seventh: TORN.
Delegates to UE’s Northeast Region demonstrated their commitment to direct action and solidarity on the first day of their council meeting, driving to nearby Greenfield to join members of UE Local 274 who are locked into a difficult contract battle with their employer, Kennametal.
“Workers here bust their backs to give a good product to this company,” UE Northeast Region President Bill Ladd told the spirited picket line and rally, “and the company wants to break their backs by taking every penny they can from them.”
Members of UE Local 275 who work for Viking Kitchens negotiated a new three-year contract in April. The contract provides for a general wage increase of 65 cents for each year of the contract. The pay scale for delivery drivers increased by three dollars, and health insurance costs will remain the same.
Beginning in February of this year, hundreds of workers in the West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) have joined a mass grievance protesting the agency’s continued refusal to comply with a legislative mandate to raise pay for all of those tasked with the maintenance and safety of the state’s roadways. At this writing, nearly three hundred workers have signed onto the grievance, which is now pending at the second level of the public employees’ grievance procedure.
After twice rejecting concessionary offers from their employer, American Iron & Steel, and working without a contract for more than four months, the members of UE Local 1139 settled a new three-year contract in December that increases wages and protects insurance costs and jobs.
UE’s 76th Convention will be held at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh from August 25-29, with the theme “UE: The Union for Everyone!” The official convention call was mailed to all UE locals in mid-April, and a follow-up mailing will be sent in May.
UE members marked International Workers’ Day in their communities and workplaces on May 1, joining marches, rallies and forums and wearing union t-shirts in the shop in Chicago, Los Angeles, Madison, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Vermont. Two UE members were also interviewed for an In These Times magazine article, “Why May Day Continues to Capture the Hearts and Imaginations of Workers.”
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