UE NEWS Updates

After 128 days of tough contract negotiations, including a nine-day strike, 1,700 members of UE Locals 506 and 618 voted to ratify a four-year contract with their new employer Wabtec on June 12. UE members were able to preserve most of the gains that they had won over 82 years of contract negotiations with their former employer General Electric. But it was one hell of a fight.

In May, UE Local 150 President Bryce Carter traveled to Japan to participate in an international conference  addressing the privatization of public work entitled “International Symposium on Public-Sector Workers’ Struggles against the Destruction of Public Services under Neo-Liberalism.” Carter was hosted by Jichiroren, the Japanese public sector workers’ union affiliated with UE ally Zenroren.

The conference was held in Tokyo on May 19. Other participants included representatives from Unite the Union in the United Kingdom and the Korean Federation of Public Services and Transportation Workers’ Unions, in addition to many Japanese public sector workers.

On Thursday, UE Locals 506 and 618 signed a tentative agreement for a four-year contract with Wabtec, to cover 1700 workers at the former GE Transportation facility.

The agreements maintains current wage rates for existing Wabtec employees, and provides for a ten-year progression to full wage rates for all newly hired employees. The company has made a contractual commitment to create new work equivalent to 100 full-time employees by the end of the contract.

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.