UE Local 221

06/19/2020

UE stands in solidarity with Juneteenth actions happening today and this weekend to Defend Black Lives.

Find an action near you at https://map.sixnineteen.com

UE members plan to join events around the country.

In North Carolina, UE150 NC Public Service Workers Union members will be joining the Durham Workers Assembly today to rally for Black lives and to reallocate police funds to the needs of city workers and the community: https://facebook.com/events/s/workers-rally-for-black-lives-/1148085818908303/?ti=icl

“The police have always gotten what they needed, but every time this city has come up on a shortfall, we have to suffer,” stated Donald Quick, operator in the Public Works Department, City of Durham worker, and Financial Secretary of the Durham City Workers Union chapter of UE150 who plans to speak at Friday’s rally. Quick continued, “And I’m tired of street maintenance and other departments having to suffer at the hands of police. It’s not right. We are the ones that have to clean this city up when a disaster comes. You don’t see the police. We make it safe.”

In Vermont, UE Local 203 members who work at City Market's two grocery locations will be holding their second weekly Black Lives Matter t-shirt day on Saturday. “As the fight for racial justice continues across the nation and globe, we identified this as one way to ... let the community know where our priorities lie,” the local said in a Facebook post announcing the weekly t-shirt days. Local 203 has donated $2,000 to racial justice organizations locally and around the country, and challenged management to match those donations.

In a May 29 statement, UE’s officers reiterated that:

As the UE Policy “Fight Racism” states, “Working-class unity can never be taken for granted. Winning depends upon our success in the fight against racism.” We call on the labor movement and all working people to stand in solidarity with our Black brothers, sisters and siblings, and to redouble our efforts to fight for racial justice.

02/19/2020

If a supervisor or the boss asks questions that could lead to disciplinary action, UE members have the right to ask for a UE steward or other union officer. This is something all UE members should know— it’s our job, as UE Stewards, to make sure they do! A vital part of your job is to keep manag...

01/25/2020

UE Local 221 members who work for the Head Start program at Northeast Kingdom Community Action (NEKCA) ratified a new two-year agreement this fall. The new contract updates the wage scale for the first time since 2002, when workers agreed to freeze the wage scale and only take cost-of-living adjustments in order to help the agency through some difficult financial times.

Home visitors, whose hours had previously fluctuated based on their caseloads, are now guaranteed a regular 40 hours per week. Site closings due to weather, which had been made on a chaotic site-by-site basis, will now uniformly be determined by the local public elementary school’s decision to close, delay or early release. Labor-Management Committee meetings, which had been held after work hours with no compensation for union participants’s time, will now take place during work hours, and union members will be paid at their regularly hourly rate.

“This wage increase will help me live my life a little better,” said Chief Steward Deb Brousseau. “I’m proud of what we negotiated for our membership.”

(Photo: UE Local 221/NECKA bargaining committee. Left to right: Lee Ann Lee, Lesa Cathcart, Chief Steward Deb Brousseau, UE Field Organizer Abbie Curtis, Kelli Arkley.)

01/04/2020

U.S. Labor Against the War, of which UE is a founding member, released a statement today condemning President Trump’s warmongering in the Middle East and calling for “immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq and no catastrophic war with Iran.”

“We shouldn’t have been in Iraq in the first place,” said UE General President Carl Rosen. “The Iraq war was a mistake, and for the sake of working people in the U.S., Iraq and Iran we need to bring our troops home now.”

The USLAW statement concludes:

“What will strengthen the security and safety of the American people, and serve our real national interests, will be moving the funds stolen by the corporate elite behind the Pentagon and war machine toward creating stable living wage jobs. These funds can provide universal healthcare, rebuild our schools, support students instead of encumbering them with debt, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, help homeowners and renters instead of banks, and reduce our carbon footprint by creating alternative sustainable sources of energy to slow the process of global warming. These are our demands, and this is what true security requires – not more bombs, military interventions, and sanctions that cripple entire economies.”

Actions will take place in cities across the country tomorrow (Saturday, January 4th) as part of a National Day of Action calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq: https://www.codepink.org/01042020

Read the full USLAW statement here: https://uslaboragainstwar.org/2020/01/03/labor-says-no-war-on-iran-us-out-of-iraq/

07/10/2019

01/07/2019

https://www.facebook.com/116339108590/posts/10156475916618591/

Today is the 80th anniversary of the UE NEWS — first published on January 7, 1939. Thanks to the good folks at the University of Pittsburgh archives, you can view (and search) all issues of the UE NEWS from 1939 through 2010 at https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A01493026/viewer

11/03/2017

https://www.facebook.com/UeLocal234/posts/1726735207367773

04/25/2016

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/sanders-snags-another-union-endorsement-222357

Peter Knowlton, the union's national president, called the Vermont senator "the most pro-worker pro-union presidential candidate I have seen in my lifetime."

04/19/2016

Sisters and Brothers, today we signed our contract with management. Thank you to our negotiating committee for all their hard word!