From victories for working people in Bolivia and Chile to attacks on workers’ rights in Alberta, Canada and violent repression of labor activists in the Philippines and Colombia, we review the ups and down of 2020 for workers around the world.
(St. John, Canada)— Workers at Dominion grocery stores across the province of Newfoundland, members of Unifor Local 597, ratified a new collective agreement on November 13, ending a 12-week long strike action at stores across Newfoundland.
This year, we celebrate International Workers Day as the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the central importance of workers to our society. It is the labor of frontline workers — healthcare workers, grocery and food workers, sanitation workers and others — that is keeping people alive right now, not the wealth accumulated by capitalists.
In November, UE Local 506 hosted a tri-national labor solidarity gathering at their hall in Erie, PA. The event, entitled “Overcoming Fear: Creating a Trinational Workers Toolkit,” was organized by UE’s Director of International Strategies Kari Thompson, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, and the Canadian Steelworkers. Participants gathered from across Mexico, Canada, and the US, including UE […]
As the shameful lockout of Coop Refinery workers in Regina, Saskatchewan enters its tenth week, UE reaffirms our full solidarity with Unifor Local 594. The very right of workers to have an organized voice and a say in their workplaces is at stake in this dispute. We are encouraged by the solidarity shown to Local 594 by their national union and the rest of the Canadian labor movement, and we encourage all US unions to close ranks with our brothers and sisters in Canada to defeat this attack on our rights.
From November 24th to December 4th, 2019, United States Labor Against the War (USLAW) and the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) led a joint labor delegation to Colombia. UE was represented by Field Organizer John Ocampo.
Here at the UE Research and Education Fund, we’ve done a lot this past year to deepen UE members’ understanding of the world through international solidarity with workers from other places. We look forward to continuing this work to challenge capitalism, militarism and nationalism in the new year.
On Human Rights Day, December 10, UE joined hundreds of other unions throughout the world in taking action to support the working people of the Philippines, where trade unionists and activists are facing increasing repression and violence.
(Washington, DC)— Retired UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley joined labor rights activists at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, November 20 to demand justice for recently murdered Mexican unionists, and that labor-rights provisions in the renegotiated NAFTA 2.0 be strengthened before it is sent to Congress.
UE unequivocally condemns the removal of Bolivia’s elected president Evo Morales by the military on Sunday, and the violence carried out by the military and right-wing paramilitary forces against Indigenous people and political activists in that country. This coup is just the latest example of an attack on a progressive Latin American government by “big business forces supported by U.S. administrations”, as denounced by UE policy, attacks which have as their goal the fattening of corporate profits at the expense of the region’s workers and environment.
