UE NEWS Updates

Earlier this week, workers in Ontario won an inspiring victory against their right-wing government. Premiere Doug Ford’s government passed a special bill in an attempt to impose a contract on 55,000 education workers and revoke their right to strike. Those workers went on strike anyway, receiving support from the rest of the province’s labor movement (including important support from UE’s close Canadian ally Unifor), and on Monday the government announced it would withdraw the bill.

Members of amalgamated UE Local 221 who work for the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) ratified a new three-year contract this past week. The contract covers workers who work for Head Start programs, community action offices, food shelves, and a variety of other programs across the four Vermont counties of Chittenden, Addison, Franklin and Grand Isle.

On Friday, October 28, housekeepers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, joined by over 100 supporters, rallied for $20 per hour and an end to pay-to-work policies.

Organized by the Workers Union @ UNC, a chapter of UE Local 150, the march and rally featured speak-outs from housekeepers as well as statements of support from the Campus Y, Siembra, and The Black Student Movement. The housekeepers delivered 2,100 petition signatures supporting their demands to the chancellor's office.

On October 30, Brazilian voters elected former metalworkers’ union leader (and former two-term president) Luiz Inácio da Silva, popularly known simply as “Lula,” as president. Lula defeated incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally who during his four years in office attacked unions, encouraged violence against opponents, and oversaw massive deforestation of the Amazon rainforests — hastening climate change and putting the entire world at risk.

In a statement released after the victory, the union federation Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT) called the election a “victory of hope” over “fear, coercion and corporate electoral harassment,” and over those who tolerate and encourage “violence as a method of doing politics.”