United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), Northeast Region
5 Hill Street, Taunton, MA 02780
(774) 264 0110
office@uenortheast.org
United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), Northeast Region
In a tough economic and political climate, organizing unity within the workplace and solidarity with the broader community are the keys to winning justice for working people. That theme recurred throughout the contract and organizing reports, political action deliberations, and a special workshop on the economy at the June UE District 2 council meeting.
Unity and community solidarity brought two of UE's newest members to the council meeting. Celia Leopold reported how she and her co-workers at Champlain Vocational Services, who provide community and vocational opportunities for individuals with disabilities, organized into UE so that the workers could "get what we need in order to serve our clients better." In order to avoid the long, drawn-out process of a labor board election, the workers informed management that they would strike if the boss did not agree to a quick, community-sponsored election. The workers won the election by a four-to-one margin, and were on track to complete a first contract by the end of June - a deadline the workers had set after winning the election. Sean Damon reported how service and retail workers in downtown Montpelier, Vermont are organizing a union to represent all downtown workers, even without legal recognition and contracts. They have been signing up workers as dues-paying UE members, and have developed a steward system for the downtown. The union recently won a grievance at the Shaw's supermarket, where a worker was suspended for wearing an anti-Bush button at work. After two UE stewards went into the store and delivered an information request, the worker got her hours back. Both the CVS workers and the Montpelier downtown workers are part of amalgamated UE Local 221.
Organizing reports also included reports on Timkin Aerospace, where workers have also taken action to make the boss resolve grievances without formal recognition, and the Old Rochester Regional School District, where custodial workers, members of UE Local 248, took the initiative to organize the district's food service workers. Although every worker in the bargaining unit joined a march on the boss to demand recognition, management is forcing the workers to go through the long, bureaucratic process of a labor board election.
Delegates also heard from Steve Hingtgen, a three-term Vermont state legislator and Progressive candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Hingtgen, who was a key leader when workers at CVOEO/Community Action in Burlington organized into UE Local 221 in the early 90s, said his UE experience helped him decide that when he became a legislator, he would be an organizer - to empower working people to fight for justice. He is running for Lieutenant Governor because, during his time in the legislature, one issue kept coming back over and over again, an issue that "every politician wants to talk about and no politician wants to do anything about" - health care. Hingtgen declared that there is only one way to solve the health care crisis, which is to stand up to the insurance companies and create a universal, single-payer plan. Delegates gave him a rousing endorsement.
UE General President John Hovis and Education Director Carol Lambiase presented a workshop, "The U.S. Economy: A look at the impact of neoliberal economic policy." No matter who wins the upcoming election, explained Hovis, both major U.S. parties embrace a neoliberal theory of economics: a free flow of capital, market controlled system (privatization), transfer of wealth to the rich, and the elimination of unions. In a nutshell, neoliberalism is "Robin Hood in reverse." Corporate control of the media prevents most Americans from getting the real story about what is happening to our economy, while wealth is transfered from workers to the rich through health-care price-gouging, tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of services needed by workers, the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs to "free trade," and the ability of bosses to keep wages down with a system of labor law stacked against workers. As always, UE's response is to organize to build unity and solidarity around an alternative program of putting full employment at the top of federal priorities; restoring taxes on the wealthy and corporations; alternative, people-driven models of globalization and trade; and "People first" economic development.