Despite the economic crisis and rumors that organizing would result in layoffs, on April 21 the 33 tutors in who work for the Farmington Board of Education (BOE) voted 17 to 7 to join UE. They’ll become part of Sub-local 60 of Connecticut’s statewide UE Local 222. The sub-local already includes the paraeducators, education secretaries, clerks, custodians and maintenance workers in the Farmington public schools.
“We believe this contract is a win/win for all parties involved,” said Local 896/COGS Mark Salisbury.
Negotiating with the State of Iowa in the midst of a budget crisis and the worst recession in decades, the members of UE Local 893 – Iowa United Professionals still managed to negotiate a new two-year agreement that provided modest gains. Members of both the social services and science bargaining units ratified the new contract on February 26 by margins of more than 20 to 1. The new agreement goes into effect on July 1, 2009.
Region 13 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a decision agreeing with UE’s allegations that Republic Windows and Doors violated federal labor law in moving work out of the Chicago facility, where workers have been members of UE Local 1110, and closing the factory in early December. Workers responded with a five-day plant occupation that drew national attention and support for their fight and won them the pay that Republic had denied them.
Specifically the Region has found that:
Raleigh City Sanitation workers, whose courageous job action on September 13-14, 2006 shook the state and energized UE’s fight for public employee rights in North Carolina, on Friday called a press conference and rally at the same spot where they launched that strike, to make the public aware of continuing problems. They were joined by Raleigh city workers from other departments, and their event received major coverage in Raleigh-area news media.
UE members at Graham Packaging have been hard-hit by the economic downturn, with two-thirds of them laid off, some since September. Yet when the company came after them in negotiations with a determined attack on their pension, healthcare, and their civil liberties, Graham workers responded with a high level of unity and militancy, and turned the tide of battle.
UE Local 170 has been making news in West Virginia and nationally, and in the words of one local TV station, “making waves” over the state’s double standard on pay.
The local is protesting the fact that Governor Joe Manchin is about to receive a 58 percent pay increase while withholding raises for state workers. The union’s fight on behalf of public employees was the subject of a segment on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight program on February 27.
The sale of the former Republic Windows and Doors Company to California-based Serious Materials has been finalized with the approval of the bankruptcy court. Serious Materials also reached agreement with UE Local 1110, ensuring that all former Republic employees will be rehired at their former rate of pay, and that UE will continue to represent workers at the factory.
For the 190 paraeducators in the Wallingford Public Schools, the fight for health benefits started long before the recent round of contract negotiations began last July. In a contract survey conducted months earlier by their union, Sub-local 75 of UE Local 222, over half of the members said that gaining healthcare coverage – which their employer had never provided them – was the most important bargaining goal.
UE’s website has been voted “Labour Website of the Year,” by users of LabourStart, the global labor news site based in Britain.
LabourStart has conducted the competition every year since 1997. Trade union websites from around the world compete and individual union members vote online to choose is the very best union website. This year’s winner was announced on February 11.
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