United Electrical Workers

  • UE Occupies Chicago Window Plant Again, and Wins Reprieve
    Jane Slaughter
    Feb 24 2012 - 12:30pm

    Members of the United Electrical Workers won another reprieve for a Chicago window factory, re-occupying the plant they famously held in 2008. UE took over the plant yesterday after local management said it would close immediately.

  • Ontario Caterpillar Workers Locked Out for Refusing Half Pay
    Jane Slaughter
    Jan 30 2012 - 1:00pm

    “They issued an ultimatum, I wouldn’t call it bargaining,” said union negotiator Bob Orr. Caterpillar, despite $4.9 billion in profits, is trying to force 50 percent wage cuts by locking out 465 skilled locomotive builders.

  • United Electrical Workers Celebrate 75 Turbulent Years

    The union’s convention this week, in Pittsburgh, showed the UE spirit alive and kicking despite the hammering it’s taken along with the rest of the labor movement.

  • Rebel Rank and File: Learning from the 1970s

    Peter Olney reviews Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below during the Long 1970s. He says the book provides a jolt of adrenalin; it's an antidote to labor organizing that does not begin with the centrality of power in the workplace.

  • Stop the Auction!: UE Seeks Solidarity

    UPDATE: The auction action has been canceled. Esterline Technologies improved its severance offer--on the condition that UE Local 204 not attempt to stop the auction. The local said that more than $600,000 for 85 members is at stake. More information will be forthcoming.

  • Threat of Mass Mobilization Backs Company Down

    Last month United Electrical Workers Local 204 in Taunton, Massachusetts, called for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to a shuttered factory to stop the auction of its machines. In response, the company has postponed the auction, in a temporary victory for the union and the city, which is moving forward to take the plant equipment by eminent domain.

  • Union Will Block Factory Auction to Save Jobs

    In a move to save factory jobs that evokes shades of the ’30s, the United Electrical Workers are asking supporters to block a December 14 auction of presses and equipment from a plant south of Boston. The UE is calling for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to the 80-year-old plant if necessary.

  • Bissell Tries Sucking the Life Out of Union Organizing Drive

    Forty warehouse workers and their supporters picketed Wednesday in front of the Bissell distribution center in Joliet, Illinois, one of dozens of mammoth buildings that have sprung up off of I-55 south of Chicago. One week earlier Bissell—through their temp agency—dropped the axe on all 70 workers in the warehouse. Their offense? Trying to form a union.

  • Republic Factory Occupiers Meet French ‘Bossnappers’

    Chicago saw an unusual meeting of the minds last week between two groups of workers who have taken extraordinary steps when faced with a plant closing.