UE Northeast Region The Northeast's Rank-and-File Union

With the country in the worst economic hole that most Americans can remember, conservative politicians and bankers are prescribing “medicine” that can only make things worse: immediate cuts in basic public services and jobs. They say we should forget about creating jobs, saving education, or helping the jobless and those about to lose their homes. The country’s top economic priority should be cutting the deficit. Of course, they were singing a different tune in 2008, when the biggest bankers in the country were all lined up to receive billions in handouts from the taxpayers.

Under the guise of fighting the federal budget deficit, a renewed attack on Social Security is being plotted in Washington by a commission that’s meeting in secret and intends to push its plan through Congress after the election. Concerned citizens need to educate themselves about this stealth assault on our country’s most successful and popular social program, and take action to defend it before it’s too late.

The vast majority of warehouse workers in Will County, Illinois – a huge hub for the logistics industry near Chicago – are temps who are paid poverty wages and receive no benefits. Those are among the findings in an eight-month study and survey of those workers on their economic status and working conditions conducted by Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ). The findings of that study were released by WWJ on August 16, in a report titled “Bad Jobs in Goods Movement: Warehouse Work in Will County.”

UE Local 170 members are mobilizing against efforts by the state to privatize information technology (IT) jobs. On July 14, nearly 100 state Office of Technology employees showed up for a union press conference outside their workplace in the Capitol Complex – turning it into a rally against outsourcing. UE members say that state’s plans would not only wipe out jobs, but would endanger the privacy of West Virginia residents. Since that protest, some state legislators have become more critical of the administration's outsourcing plans.

With a 70 percent “yes” vote, members of newly-affiliated UE Local 735 employed at Autoline in Butler, Indiana on July 10 ratified a three-year agreement that was the result of hard-fought negotiations. Autoline workers voted in April to affiliate their independent union with UE, as they faced attacks by the employer on conditions in the shop and harsh concessionary demands at the bargaining table.

Members of UE Local 799 have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new two year contract that includes a wage increase, contract language improvements, and no concessions. Members of the local include the food service workers, maintenance workers, custodians, bus drivers, mechanics and dispatcher for the Delaware City Schools in Central Ohio. Wages were increased by 1.5 percent effective July 1, and there will be a wage and insurance re-opener on July 1, 2011.

Media Matters, the media research watchdog website, has compiled examples of vicious, slanderous attacks on unions by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and other conservative media. The August 5 report is titled, “Union busting: Right-wing media relentlessly attack worker representation.” It finds that “Media conservatives have waged a relentless war against labor unions, blaming them for a wide variety of problems and smearing them as 'communists' and 'thugs,' among other attacks.”

Congress and the White House need to take drastic action - period...

Maybe now Democrats will abandon their failed hopes for bipartisanship...

Nearly 50 UE members and staff were among the 10,000 social justice activists who met in the Motor City June 22 to 26 for the second United States Social Forum (USSF). No union played a bigger role than UE. Members of UE led or spoke as panelists in eight different workshops or assemblies, and UE banners and signs were prominent in four marches and rallies.

British Petroleum, the company responsible for the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, has over its 100-year history caused a number of environmental and workplace disasters. But the harm BP has caused goes a lot further than the millions of barrels of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Here's why ...

One has to ask, “Can the U.S. Senate get anything done?”