UE

Just days after delivering more than one million signatures to force a recall election on anti-worker Governor Scott Walker, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO has announced a statewide "Reclaim Wisconsin Tour."

So-called "right-to-work" legislation has absolutely nothing to do with helping anyone find a job or keep their job. Rather, "right to work" is a cleverly deceptive label for an attack on unions.

A UE delegation from Local 506 joined a London, Ontario rally of 15,000 in defense of locomotive workers there who have been locked out by Caterpillar Inc., which is trying to slash their wages and benefits.

Rick Peduzzi, the union's hardworking Director of Special Projects whose many contributions to the union include creating and maintaining this website, died January 18 as the result of an apparent stroke. He was just 56 years old.

Opponents of Wisconsin's union-busting governor Scott Walker today filed more than one million signatures on petitions calling for his recall. The legal requirement was for 540,000 signatures. The petitions delivered to the state Government Accountability Board in Madison weighed 1.5 tons.

David Montgomery, the most respected U.S. labor historian and a longtime friend of UE, died on December 2 at age 84. In the early 1950s Montgomery was a UE member at Premier Machine, a small machine shop in Greenwich Village which was part of UE Local 475, a large amalgamated local in New York City. Many years later he was a guest speaker at four UE conventions. Montgomery helped to transform the writing and teaching of labor history, from merely the institutional history of individual unions, to examining in detail the lives, work and struggles of workers.

Professor Richard D. Wolff is a professor of economics who has published numerous books on the subject of economic democracy and has appeared as a guest on television and radio news programs including Democracy Now! and The Real News. He currently hosts a weekly radio program on economics and society called Economic Update, at WBAI in New York City. Some of his lectures, based on his book "Capitalism Hits the Fan", are available for online viewing.

At the end of a tough round of negotiations that included membership rejection in October of an earlier company offer, UE Local 1137 members have approved a new two-year agreement with Ferro Pfanstiehl, a pharmaceutical manufacturer. The new contract includes hourly raises of 45 cents each, and brings three workers who were below the standard wage rates up to rate.

UE Local 222 has won a big victory for the newly-organized school paraprofessionals in Branford, Connecticut. A few days after their resounding organizing election victory last June, the Board of Education improperly terminated four of the workers. Those four workers have now been reinstated with back pay.

Jason Whisler, UE Local 896's political action chair and a teaching assistant and graduate student in history at the University of Iowa, analyzes Iowa labor's important win in the 18th state senate district.

The so-called "Supercommittee" -- a 12-member congressional panel that was meeting in secret to shove through massive budget cuts -- has collapsed in failure. The media treats that as bad news, but for working people, it was the best possible outcome for an undemocratic, and probably unconstitutional, process.

The members of UE Local 234 have a new three-year contract with their employer, Fairbanks Scales, with raises totaling 9 percent, no increase in workers' share of health insurance premiums for the first two years, and only a small increase in the third year. Agreement was reached two days before the October 31 expiration date.

In just the first 12 days, the petition drive to recall union-busting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has gathered 300,000 signatures. UE members are in the thick of the battle.

The members of UE Local 222, Sub-local 80 in the Woodbridge public school district have won an important battle, overturning the actions of the board of education (BOE) in privatizing the work previously done by four custodians represented by the union. In a November 15 decision, the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations found the BOE's actions to be illegal and ordered the school board to cease and desist from subcontracting custodial work; post and fill four full-time custodial positions as union jobs; award one of those jobs to Daniela Soradi, a senior employee who had sought a custodial job, with back pay to December 2009; allow fill-in custodian Monserrate Montes to bid for a full-time janitorial position, and pay the union the amount that Montes would have paid in union dues since January 2010.

The campaign to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got underway on November 15, with UE members already active in the petition drive.

UE locals in Southern California have been supporting the "Occupy Wall Street" movement there. They have joined the Labor Solidarity Committee which includes over 30 unions that have been helping Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Long Beach and Occupy Orange County.

WashingtonUE members across the country have reason to celebrate two landmark election victories as voters in two states -- Ohio and Iowa -- overwhelmingly turned

Voters in Ohio have decisively overturned SB 5, the union-busting law adopted by the Ohio Legislature earlier this year. UE members in Ohio were very involved in the campaign, starting with rallies and protests last February and March when the legislature was debating the bill.

UE's national officers have issued a statement expressing the union's solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. "This country is overdue to have a mass popular movement that correctly identifies the causes of our current economic mess in the outrageous behavior of Wall Street, big business, and the super rich," says the statement in part.

As of Tuesday, November 1, UE's team of national officers has changed. Following the election of officers at our national convention September 25-29, our new national officers are General President Bruce Klipple, General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker, and Director of Organization Bob Kingsley.