Workers around the world face the same conditions: bosses who maximize their profit by moving their investments without regard to their impacts on communities or the environment. As long as there are places where workers toil for starvation wages without health and safety protections, it’s hard to achieve or maintain good wages or conditions anywhere. We must work collaboratively across borders in order to effectively fight back against the multinational corporations that dominate our economy.
UE encourages our members to build relationships with workers in other countries through international travel and other exchanges. Due to the pandemic, our opportunities for in-person international exchanges were curtailed until recently. In the past two years, UE members, officers, and staff participated in numerous online exchanges with union allies around the world, and hosted allies from FIOM (Italy) and Zenroren (Japan) in Chicago. UE representatives also attended union conventions in Canada and Brazil.
International partnerships inspire UE’s approach to a wide variety of our work. UE’s strong stance on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade and tariff changes was informed by our alliances with the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) in Mexico and Unifor in Canada. As demonstrated in the new scrapbook we developed documenting our 30-year relationship with Zenroren in Japan, our two unions have solidified our positions on the need for peace for working people, and on the need to organize nonunion workers, especially among the growing number of precarious, subcontracted workers.
By remaining unwavering in our commitment to international solidarity in the coming period, we advance our interests in promoting democratic, rank-and-file worker control at home and abroad.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 78th UE CONVENTION:
- Reaffirms support for the Strategic Organizing Alliance with the FAT;
- Reaffirms the deepening of our relationship with Zenroren;
- Reaffirms support for the UE-Unifor North American Solidarity Project;
- Reaffirms our participation in and support of the global union federation IndustriALL;
- Reaffirms solidarity with: the CSN of Quebec; FIOM of Italy; Brazilian Central Union of Workers (CUT); CGT of France; New Trade Union Initiative of India; Workers Advice Center (MAAN) in Israel/Palestine; Kilusang Mayo Uno and Partido ng Manggagawa of the Philippines; Unite the Union of the United Kingdom; Korean Confederation of Trade Unions; Sintraproaceites of Colombia; and other democratic worker movements around the world;
- Stands in full solidarity with allied unions as they fight austerity, attacks on union rights, xenophobia and other policies pushed forward by corporate-backed, right-wing governments;
- Commits to building relations with unions abroad through direct contact, progressive forums and networks, and other means, as well as establishing and deepening relationships with workers in sister shops who globally share our employers;
- Condemns the murder and persecution of trade unionists, harassment of unions, and union busting anywhere in the world;
- Encourages locals and members to increase their involvement in our international program and to make contributions to the UE-FAT Solidarity Fund and UE Research and Education Fund;
- Commits to ongoing worker-to-worker exchanges with our allies and educational work with our members in order to deepen our alliances and understanding of global labor conditions so that we may engage in collective action together;
- Encourages the participation in global alliances to fight the rise of precarious and contingent (part-time, temporary, subcontracted, and insecure) jobs.