UE NEWS Updates

As the City of Virginia Beach prepares for an important election, with city council districts newly re-drawn to rectify a history of racial disenfranchisement, city workers, faith leaders, community and labor allies spoke out at an educational rally on Saturday, September 17 about why collective bargaining is an important aspect of democracy.

When Buckeye Partners recently promoted a new manager over the yard where UE Local 106 members work, he began unilaterally changing a number of practices. The local has successfully fought off every regressive action the supervisor has taken.

The new manager issued letters to UE members in one classification (Relief Operators) that they couldn't upgrade their pay when they worked in a higher job (Operator), except in very narrow circumstances — despite the fact that they effectively do the same work as the operators and have been upgrading for their whole shifts for years.

After beating company union-busting and winning a second NLRB election in May, more than 200 workers at the Refresco bottling plant, members of UE Local 115, are finally at the bargaining table with their employer. The elected union negotiating committee has been meeting regularly with the company since July, and has already reached agreement on several issues.

Meeting in-person for the first time since January of 2020, UE’s General Executive Board convened in Pittsburgh from September 14-16 to review the union’s work and the economic and political situation facing working people. They issued a statement, “Defending Workers’ Interests in a Rigged System,” about the upcoming midterm elections, and participated in a new UE workshop on inflation and how to fix it without losing jobs.