International Solidarity

Workers around the world face the same conditions: bosses who maximize their profit by moving their investments without regard to their impact 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. Over the past two years, UE members have renewed our tradition of worker-to-worker exchanges with our international allies, with UE members traveling to Cuba, Mexico, Quebec, and Japan to deepen our solidarity with workers in those countries, and hosting international allies at the 2024 Labor Notes conference in Chicago.

In May 2024, UE sent our first delegation since 2017 to visit with our close Mexican ally the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT). FAT and UE members discussed organizing opportunities, political dynamics, and the challenges facing working women in their respective countries. The FAT also arranged a meeting with the Alianza de Tranviarios de México (ATM), an independent union representing workers in the electric tram and trolley system in Mexico City, to discuss UE’s Green Locomotive Project. In May 2025, UE General President Carl Rosen attended the triennial convention of the Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain (CCMM-CSN) of UE’s close Quebec ally Confédération des syndicats nationaux, which brings together 110,000 CSN members in the greater Montreal area, and in August Local 506 Business Agent John Miles traveled to Japan to join our close ally Zenroren in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

UE also strengthened relationships with numerous international allies from Japan, Quebec, Canada, France, Australia, Great Britain, Norway, New Zealand, and more at the Labor Notes Conference in April 2024. The conference provided opportunities for many UE members to meet and exchange experiences with their counterparts from other countries. Following the conference, the Zenroren delegation stayed in Chicago an extra day to continue their exchange with UE and meet with the Chicago Teachers’ Union.

UE is also actively working to build solidarity with workers in the Wabtec chain globally, who share the same employer as UE Locals 506, 610 and 618, building links with Wabtec workers in Great Britain, Brazil, and Italy. In November, UE Local 618 Business Agent Janet Gray and Staff Coordinator John Thompson will travel to Australia to participate in the Congress of IndustriALL, the global union federation in the manufacturing sector. IndustriALL played a key role in setting up a global alliance of General Electric workers in 2019; we are hopeful that this congress will help us set up a similar alliance in the Wabtec chain.

International partnerships inspire UE’s approach to a wide variety of our work. In July 2024, the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, which UE helped initiate, hosted a webinar with Palestinian trade unionists and the advocacy organization Workers in Palestine. Hundreds of U.S. unionists heard moving testimonies directly from Palestinian trade unionists about the living and working conditions for Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank.

The tariffs announced by President Trump will affect workers, not just in the U.S., but around the world. In early 2025, UE President Rosen spoke with Lana Payne, the National President of Unifor, a close UE ally and Canada’s largest private-sector union, about ways to approach Trump’s tariffs from the perspective of international solidarity among workers.

International solidarity has always informed UE’s approach to questions of international trade, and we worked closely with both the FAT and Canadian unions in opposing the initial passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in demanding improved labor standards when its successor agreement, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), was negotiated. The USMCA includes provisions requiring the three countries to periodically review, and possibly amend, the pact, and reviews of the labor and environmental chapters of the agreement are scheduled to take place starting this year.

Although Trump called USMCA “the greatest trade deal ever,” the U.S. trade deficit has actually increased under the USMCA, compared to under NAFTA. UE is part of a large coalition of labor, environmental, and community groups that plans to mobilize to demand that changes be made to the agreement to improve labor standards in all three countries.

International solidarity is especially important as the world sees a rising tide of right-wing authoritarian governments, which often use appeals to nationalism and demonization of immigrants and foreign workers to justify attacks on human and labor rights. We know from history that the labor movement—and international solidarity among workers—have played a key role in defeating authoritarian regimes in the past, such as apartheid in South Africa and the military dictatorship in Brazil.

An inspiring and more recent example is the leading role that the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions played in the defeat of an attempted military coup in December 2024, when South Korea’s right-wing president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, banning all political activity, strikes, and “gatherings that incite social unrest.” The martial law order was overturned within hours, after Korean citizens, including many KCTU members, took to the streets and surrounded the parliament building. Following marches, demonstrations, and strikes called by KCTU affiliates, the South Korean parliament voted to impeach Yoon in December; he was removed from office in April and replaced in June by Lee Jae Myung, a parliamentary leader who had helped lead opposition to the coup.

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 79th UE CONVENTION:

  1. Reaffirms our solidarity with the FAT of Mexico; Zenroren of Japan; Unifor of Canada; CSN of Quebec; FIOM of Italy; Central Union of Workers (CUT) of Brazil; CGT of France; New Trade Union Initiative of India; Kilusang Mayo Uno of the Philippines; Unite the Union of the United Kingdom; Korean Confederation of Trade Unions; and other democratic worker movements around the world;
  2. Reaffirms our participation in and support of the global union federation IndustriALL;
  3. 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;
  4. Condemns the murder and persecution of trade unionists, harassment of unions, and union busting anywhere in the world;
  5. 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;
  6. 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;
  7. Joins our ally Zenroren in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this month, and reaffirms our commitment to work with Zenroren to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.