Economic conditions have sent workers in numerous sectors on strike across the United Kingdom for the past several months, culminating in a February 1 strike of over 500,000 workers, including teachers, civil servants, and university and railroad workers. During the day of industrial action, union leaders delivered petitions signed by more than a quarter of a million […]
In a “Giving Tuesday” email to supporters of UE’s international solidarity work, UE Director of International Strategies Kari Thompson announced that “In 2023, we are planning to return to in-person member exchanges with workers in other countries, if health conditions continue to allow.”
Earlier this week, workers in Ontario won an inspiring victory against their right-wing government. Premiere Doug Ford attempted use legislation to impose a contract on 55,000 education workers and revoke their right to strike. Those workers went on strike anyway, receiving support from the rest of the province’s labor movement (including important support from UE’s close Canadian ally Unifor), and on Monday Ford’s government announced it would withdraw the bill.
On October 30, Brazilian voters elected former metalworkers’ union leader (and former two-term president) Luiz Inácio da Silva, popularly known simply as “Lula,” as president. Lula defeated incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally who during his four years in office attacked unions, encouraged violence against opponents, and oversaw massive deforestation of the Amazon rainforests — hastening climate change and putting the entire world at risk.
UE leaders from Local 506 in Erie, PA and Local 610 in Wilmerding, PA met via Zoom in July with their counterparts in Unite the Union in the United Kingdom, who are in a fight with their mutual employer Wabtec. The UE and Unite members discussed their current fights with Wabtec. UE Local 610 President Antwon […]
When UE General President Carl Rosen, Director of Organization Mark Meinster, and Director of International Strategies Kari Thompson met with a high-level delegation from our Japanese ally Zenroren in June in Chicago, they presented them with a new UE publication celebrating “three decades of Japan-U.S. working-class solidarity.”
In June, following the conclusion of the Labor Notes Conference, UE hosted a delegation of trade unionists from Zenroren, Japan’s militant labor federation and a long-time UE ally.
A UE delegation joined guests from Italy and hundreds of immigrant rights activists for May Day in Chicago this year. UE hosted representatives of Federazioni Impiegati Operai Metallurgici (Federation of Metalworkers, FIOM-CGIL) to commemorate International Workers’ Day with a new plaque on the Haymarket Square monument.
On a recent delegation to Cuba, UE Project Staff Chris Hollis asked local union leaders at an electronics plant in Havana how workers in Cuba would go about organizing a union. “They didn’t understand my question,” Hollis told the UE NEWS. After several attempts to rephrase his question — “How do you go about building unions in […]
International Solidarity in Action, a new e-book written by UE’s retired Director of International Affairs Robin Alexander and published by UE, was released today. It provides an in-depth look at the decades-long relationship between the UE and the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), an independent Mexican labor federation. “Corporate globalization has destroyed millions of good […]
