The educational paraprofessionals and security aides employed by the Wolcott Board of Education (BOE) waged a year-and-a-half-long struggle to defend their pension, and their unity and persistence resulted in a new four-year contract that provides 12 percent in pay raises, improved grievance language, and the preservation of the defined benefit pension.
UE Local 222’s Sub-local 80 – representing secretaries, custodians and food service workers in the Woodbridge public schools – has negotiated a three-year contract that includes major increases in wages. The new agreement goes a long ways toward the union’s goal of reducing wage disparities with workers on comparable jobs in neighboring school districts.
On May 1, members of UE Local 610 ratified a new three-year contract that improves wages, maintains the defined benefit pension for eligible employees, preserves the existing health plan with some changes, and makes other improvements. The company had sought to freeze the pension plan for tier 1 employees, and pushed that issue until late in negotiations.
In a bulletin issued to members June 7, Local 506’s bargaining committee wrote: “After three meetings last week and two bargaining sessions this week (June 3 and 4), we regret having to inform you that there has been no real progress in our efforts to save the 950 jobs. At every bargaining session, your officers and the national union have repeatedly asked the Company for proposals to save jobs. As of yesterday (June 4), GE made no proposals and has not offered any concrete ideas to save even one job.”
(Click on the link below to download the bulletin as a PDF file.)
May 31 was a national “Day of Action” by UE members in support of the ongoing fight by Local 506 members to keep their work and good-paying union jobs in Erie, Pennsylvania – a community that has made GE profitable for more than 100 years.
At its May 16-17 meeting, the UE General Executive Board adopted a “Statement of Solidarity” with Local 506 that called for support from all UE locals, starting with a day of action on May 31 in all three UE regions.
There was still no real progress as talks continued this week between UE Local 506 and GE over the company's plans to move work out of the Erie plant to Fort Worth, Texas and to lay of 950 union members. Here's a link to Local 506's May 17 bulletin to their members.
Meeting at UE's national headquarters in Pittsburgh, the union's national leadership body, the General Executive Board, adopted a statement in solidarity with UE Local 506, which is fighting GE's plan to lay off 950 union members and transfer a significant portion of work from the Erie plant to a non-union plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
(You can download a pdf file of the GEB statement by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.)
UE General Executive Board – May 16, 2013
Local 506 today issued another update to its members on what are, so far, very frustrating negotiations with GE in Erie over the company's job transfer plans. (Click the link below to see the local's bulletin.) The headline is "UE Local 506 Deeply Upset With GE's Bargaining Position." The bulletin also announces that UE has filed an unfair labor practice charge (ULP) with the NLRB against GE for failing to meet its legal bargaining obligations.
The worker-owners of New Era Windows Cooperative, who are members of UE Local 1110 and some of the former employees of Republic Windows and Doors, will hold a grand opening and press conference on Thursday, May 9. The event will take place at 3:15 at the site of the new plant, 2600 West 35th Street in Chicago.
Elected officials, supporters, customers and remodeling contractors will join New Era Window Cooperative worker/owners in celebrating the launch of the new cooperative, a unionized, 100 percent worker-owned and operated business.
Local 243's bargaining committee reached agreement on March 20 for a new three-year agreement with Sargent Manufacturing, and the members ratified it later the same day. The settlement came six days after the expiration date of the old contract, at the end of a long, tough fight over the company's effort to eliminate the existing healthcare plan, and replace it with two inferior plans. Through the determination of Local 243's members and leadership, they retained their health plan. The local also won wage increases and other improvements.
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