UE General President Carl Rosen was a guest at the 4th Constitutional Convention of UE’s Canadian sister union Unifor, which was held from August 8-12. Rosen joined 1,800 Unifor members as they debated and voted on priorities for their union and elected a new national president. Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers in every major area of that country’s economy.
UE Local 683 members secured major improvements in their first contract with their new employer American Iron & Metals (AIM), including a $3.75 wage increase over the life of the three-year agreement. “I think negotiations went really well with the new company,” said Local 683 President Ben Seidler. “We won a lot of improvements for our members. And, we finally won union security after 20 years of fighting for it.”
“In this time of turmoil, I can think of no better place to support my coworkers, my community, and my values than at the negotiating table.”
So said Melissa Pennington, a member of the UE Local 203 negotiating committee, reflecting on her local’s most recent negotiations with their employer, the grocery co-op City Market. Those negotiations resulted in a new two-year contract which boosts wages for all Local 203 members by at least $2.30 and increases starting wages above $15 per hour.
Under a new three-year agreement with Hitachi Energy ratified in July, members of UE Local 1009 will see wage increases of four percent each year and significant increases to their travel reimbursements — an important issue for Local 1009 members, most of whom are transformer technicians who do servicing work all over the country.
The new contract increases the daily amount they receive for meals while traveling from $59 to $69, unless they are in Alaska, Hawaii or New York, where they will receive $79. Per diem reimbursement will increase from $225 to $255.
UE leaders from Local 506 in Erie, PA and Local 610 in Wilmerding, PA met via Zoom in July with their counterparts in Unite the Union in the United Kingdom, who are in a fight with their mutual employer Wabtec.
The UE and Unite members discussed their current fights with Wabtec.
UE Local 610 President Antwon Gibson told the Unite members about his local’s recent contract fight with Wabtec and the company’s announced plans to close the historic Wilmerding plant within the next two years.
The unions who negotiate with GE Appliances Factory Services as the Joint Bargaining Committee (JBC) — UE, IBEW, IAM and UA — settled a new four-year national contract in May. UE Locals 270, 335 and 707 are members of the JBC. These locals’ members are highly skilled technicians who repair home appliances.
On May 24, after repeatedly rejecting proposals from Aramark that would have given bonuses for new hires while doing nothing for current workers, UE Local 1121 won a $1.35 across-the-board wage increase for everyone in the La Crosse facility. As they explained in their newsletter, “Aramark management prefers signing bonuses because they are paid out in a lump sum that does not increase our hourly base wage and does nothing to address the rising cost of living. Our union prefers increases that increase our wages which continue to grow and compound with time.”
After more than 14 months of negotiations with Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, UE Local 696 held a rally at Pittsburgh’s City-County Building last night to demand a fair first contract.
On June 19, voters in Colombia made history by electing Gustavo Petro as their next president. Backed by virtually all of Colombia’s labor movement, Petro ran on a pro-worker program aimed at reducing inequality in one of the most unequal economies in the world.
Meeting over Zoom on June 9 and 10, UE’s General Executive Board reviewed the union’s work over the previous five months, including organizing that has brought in thousands of new members, and debated and passed a budget for the upcoming fiscal year (July 2022-June 2023).
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