UE Office Manager Joanne Caporoso will be retiring this summer, after 14 years helming the union’s national office in Pittsburgh.
“Joanne has done tremendous service for the members of UE, holding things together through thick and thin,” said UE President Carl Rosen. “She faced down technological, financial and governmental challenges, all the while making sure that the staff and the bills were paid. Joanne made sure that the pieces came together for our national conventions and other events. And she stayed around to make sure we would have a smooth transition to her successors. Joanne has been a stalwart for UE and will be missed.”
Caporoso first joined UE in 1976, when she went to work at the Wabco (now Wabtec) plant in Wilmerding, just outside of Pittsburgh. In 1986, she was laid off when the company moved her department, where UE members manufactured airbrake control valves, to Canada. From 1987 to 2007 she worked as a bookkeeper for Local 610. In between her job at Local 610 and when she began working for the national union, she worked at a non-union shop which, she said, “gave me a true appreciation of why we need a union.”
Caporoso with UE Digital Organizer and former Administrative Assistant Ebony Thomas.
UE Auditor Deb Leff, who for many years was the only other member of the financial administrative staff, said, “For the past five years, through everything UE needed from the accounting department, we worked as a team and got it done. This included not only the day-to-day workings of UE, but through conventions, Covid and the moving of the National office.” (The work that Caporoso and Leff did alone for over half a decade will now be split among four positions: Leff, who will remain as auditor, new Bookkeeper Megan Moffitt, new Human Resources Manager Korena Herbert and new Finance Director Carolyn Martyn.)
"I am happy that I had the chance to work with Joanne for the brief time I have been at UE National,” said Moffitt. “I will miss her work ethic, her great sense of humor, and especially hearing her Western PA working-class accent. I wish her happy trails and hope to see her further down the picket line one day."
On May 30 all three UE national officers, both regional presidents, and half a dozen additional members of the General Executive Board (who were meeting in Pittsburgh that week) joined the UE national office staff at a retirement party for Caporoso organized by Moffitt.