On November 20, 1975, 730 workers at the General Electric turbine plant just outside Charleston, South Carolina voted to join UE, forming Local 1202. It was the second large electrical manufacturing plant in the South to organize with UE in the 1970s, following the Tampa Westinghouse plant, where workers formed UE Local 1201 in 1972.

Charleston GE workers first contacted UE in 1971, shortly after the plant opened, seeking seniority protections, better wages, and improved working conditions. But organizing in the South was not an easy task — as the UE NEWS noted, in the local media, “Unions are presented in the image of Satan.”

Still, workers built an in-plant organizing committee, slowly but surely, and petitioned for a National Labor Relations Board election in August 1974. They lost by 70 votes, but “a group of determined workers” remained undeterred.

They launched a plant-wide petition drive for a 75 cent wage increase. In November 1974 they presented over 700 signatures to the plant manager at a “75¢ now” demonstration of over 300 workers — and within a week the company had granted wage increases of up to 36 cents. The campaign “taught us how strong we really are when everyone sticks together,” pipe welder Willie Middleton told the UE NEWS, but as machine operator Reuben Gadsden noted, “we also learned that we had no say over who got how much.”

GE Charleston workers demonstrate for 75 cent raises, November 1974.

Layoffs in March with no respect for plant-wide seniority, and the shortcomings of a company-run grievance procedure implemented after the 1974 NLRB election, further convinced workers of the importance of real union protections.

In early June, fabrication shop welder Carnell Gathers was fired for handing a union leaflet to another worker. “I figured I was gone,” Gathers said, but as first shift worker Jack Whack related, “When Carnell got fired we didn’t sit back and take it; we organized and signed petitions and filed grievances and protested to our foremen. When Carnell got reinstated we really could see what unity can accomplish.”

Although workers won their second NLRB election in November 1975, it took 14 months to get certified. The company filed objections with the NLRB and carried out an ongoing campaign against the union. As the UE NEWS reported, during this time, “Every pay envelope had an anti-union blurb imprinted on it.” In January 1977 Local 1202 members finally came under the national UE-GE contract.

The members of Local 1202 made components for the nuclear industry, which began to collapse in the wake of the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. On June 1, 1984 GE announced plans to close the Charleston plant the following year. Local 1202 launched an ambitious campaign to keep their facility open as an “alternative energy center,” which won high-profile support from Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Catholic Church, as well as bipartisan support from local politicians. Although the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, the attention it brought to the issue of plant closings and layoffs helped win passage of a measure in the South Carolina legislature to allow workers to receive more generous unemployment benefits in the wake of plant closings.

Several Local 1202 leaders went on to join the UE staff, including Gadsden and Marion Washington, who worked as a Field Organizer and then International Representative in Pittsburgh and retired in 2017. Two Field Organizers who worked on the campaign later served UE as national officers: John Hovis (Director of Organization from 1984-87 and General President from 1987-2011) and Amy Newell (Secretary-Treasurer from 1985-1994).

The post UE: Fifty Years Ago, GE Workers Organized the South first appeared on Labor Today.

A Transtar statement said,“we are investigating the incident and are cooperating with investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board”. Due to the nature of the ongoing investigations, we will not be commenting further on the incident.”

Transtar, which operates seven railroads serving U.S. Steel facilities, was sold by the steelmaker to Fortress Transportation in 2021. Its Fairfield Southern railroad provides in-plant rail service for U.S. Steel’s Fairfield Works, located approximately 10 miles west of Birmingham.

While we are saddened at the news of our brother’s death, we must double our resolve to build a safer workplace where such tragedies are not so commonplace.

The Railroad Workers United Program for Fallen Rails urges you to do the following on behalf of our fallen brother, his friends and family, co-workers and all railroad workers:

Commit yourself to following up on how and why our brother or sister was killed. What is the behind-the-scenes story? What role did unsafe conditions, including short staffing, crew fatigue, inadequate training and/or qualifying, deferred maintenance, or other factors play in this fellow worker’s death?

Get involved in the national movement against blame the worker “behavior-based safety” programs. Help build real union-based safety committees and programs that focus on hazard elimination and do not ignore the underlying causes of accidents, injuries and fatalities sustained on the job. For more information, see the RWU webpage entitled “Oppose Behavior Based Safety.”

Take part in the RWU annual Railroad Workers Memorial Day each April 28th. For more information, see the RWU webpage “Fallen Rails.”

Join RWU and fight to build solidarity and unity among all railroad workers, and make safer workplaces for all.

Thank you,
Railroad Workers United

The post RWU: Rail Fatality Alert! – Transtar Rail Worker Killed June 16th in AL first appeared on Labor Today.

In the South, the benefits of the success of such a campaign would be hard over state. By multiple means, it would inject new strength into a labor movement that is under constant open attack by the region’s political leaders and their corporate backers.

First and foremost, it would give Southerners their first taste of rightful control over a distribution system upon which the livelihoods of the entire region rely. The entire Southern economy relies on the ability to use freight rail to transfer large quantities of goods efficiently. The regular functioning of the rail system is so important that lawmakers have decided that rail workers cannot go on strike without federal approval. Despite the importance railroads play in our lives, all the decision-making on how the system works is left to a couple of monopolies.

The system as it stands not only allows a small group of corporate leaders to extract monopoly prices from their customers, but it gives them the unspoken power to bend the whole Southern economy to their will. After all, how would any sizable town function without access to rail goods? It makes no sense for all of the decisions to be in the hands of a few corporate interests. It is only right that the average Southerner has at least some say in how this system operates.

Likewise, these monopolies do not have to overly concern themselves with the safety of the communities they travel through. The example of East Palestine, OH showed that the railroad monopolies care little about the fines and cleanup fees imposed on them after a derailment because these fees are small in comparison to the profits they make by cutting corners on safety. Such corner-cutting practices are also known as “precision scheduled railroading”, and it creates so much profit that it has taken over the whole industry. These problems are here to stay unless railroad workers, communities, and environmental groups are given a direct say in how the system is managed.

Additionally, the system would immediately introduce a direct experience of worker’s democracy to states that have faced the highest levels of labor repression in the country. With the low level of union membership in the region, those turning to unionism lack direct contact with union members and local examples to draw from. If all class I’s were made public with shared control from unions, every rail-yard in the South could become a fortress of support for our labor movement. Suddenly workers across the entire region would have nearby examples of how an industry can be managed by workers, perhaps even better than by private companies.

The return of class I railroads to public ownership would provide enormous benefits to the average Southerner. This goal is attainable, beneficial to the majority of Southerners, has been proven to work in other countries, and has worked successfully in the United States. Any group or advocate worth their salt will rise to the occasion, and join the campaign to have Public Rail Now.

The post The Southern Labor Movement Must Rally Behind the Public Rail Now Campaign first appeared on Labor Today.

The DBDT leadership has claimed that the decision to terminate all of their dancers was not in response to their unionization efforts but was a response to a video posted by the dancers to Social Media. The DBDT stated in a Dallas Morning News article that this video “promoted content and practices that contradict our core values and standards of professionalism”. This article was posted in response to the uproar over the termination of the dancers, but the public sentiment still fell clearly on the side of these dancers, with AGMA “[receiving] reports of declining ticket sales, donors withdrawing their support, and major foundations severing ties with DBDT in the wake of its actions”.

Taking the air out of DBDT Leadership’s arguments, in November 2024 The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a formal complaint against the DBDT including more than 40 counts of unlawful conduct based on the dancers’ protected activities. In an Instagram post by the dancers they stated “The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a formal complaint, finding reasonable cause to believe that Dallas Black Dance Theatre committed numerous unfair labor practices, the most extreme of which was the termination of the entire company. Additionally, the NLRB is recommending seeking emergency relief in federal district court, due to the grievous nature of DBDT’s actions.” The NLRB recommended emergency relief in this matter, including reinstatement of the fired workers with back pay and “making all employees or former employees whole for any loss of wages, benefits, or other direct or foreseeable pecuniary harm.”

The long-fought struggle came to a close in December 2024, with the AGMA posting to their website that the DBDT had reached a Settlement Agreement with the terminated dancers. The agreement was brokered by the NLRB and included monetary compensation for the dancers including front pay, back pay, and other pecuniary harms, personal apologies, training and union access, and other worker protections. In addition to these, “the full 7-page NLRB Notice detailing the Company’s misconduct will be: published in The Dallas Morning News for seven days, read aloud to employees by a senior leader, and posted and distributed physically and electronically.” This historic win for performing arts workers shows the power that organized labor has in standing up to unfair treatment at the hands of the bosses. The dancers who fought in this struggle for over 6 months demonstrated for workers throughout Dallas, Texas, and the USA the strength we can achieve when banding together and fighting for our rights.

Photo courtesy of AGMA.

The post Dallas Dancers Defeat Bosses in Major Unfair Labor Practices Case first appeared on Labor Today.

Amazon resorted to many different tactics to defeat this unionization effort and judging by the vote result, it unfortunately worked incredibly well. Amazon hosted daily meetings with workers and had TV screens with anti-union messages. Amazon fired Ryan Brown who was a leading figure in the effort appropriately for using “inappropriate language” while three C.AU.S.E. members were arrested while distributing food outside the RDU1 warehouse. C.AU.S.E. members also accused Amazon of removing workers from the lobby who were attempting to share updates online. This in addition to other efforts of Amazon to defeat this drive shows the importance for the workers to fight for better conditions.

North Carolina is, along with many of its Southern neighbors, an incredibly difficult state to organize in and this vote showed many examples of the tactics used by large corporations to defeat any organizing work. North Carolina is a “right to work” state which means that the job is always going to be incredibly difficult work to do, but that it is a job that must be done. North Carolina has a long history of fighting for better conditions and unions but has come up short many times before.

Garner is a suburb of Raleigh a city that is very unaffordable for many of its residents and the efforts of these and other workers to organize and demand better conditions and wages is not only important but necessary. We must join together to support our fellow workers and fight back against any anti-union efforts both here and worldwide.

The post Amazon Repression Defeats Organizing Campaign in North Carolina first appeared on Labor Today.

RALEIGH, NC—On Friday, March 7, members of UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, spoke out against increased insurance costs and cuts to health services at the State Health Plan Board of Trustees meeting. Last month, the SHP Board, led by State Treasurer Brad Briner, voted on several proposals to increase the premiums and deductibles paid by over 700,000 state employees. The board is also considering future cuts to services and privatization of retiree health insurance plans.

Briner has called upon state workers to “step up” to pay the extra premiums; state workers called on the board to instead “step up” and ask the General Assembly to stop giving major tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.

Local 150 Recording Secretary Alexandra Fox, who works at Central Regional Hospital in Butner, detailed the “existential threat” faced by the state hospitals run by the Department of Health and Human Services. The state’s three psychiatric hospitals currently have over 400 empty beds due to staff shortages, and the department has a vacancy rate of 32.1 percent.

“DHHS is already in the middle of a major crisis of staff vacancies and having trouble to retain staff,” Fox said. “We cannot afford any increases to our premiums, to our deductibles or cuts to services. We are the people doing the most direct care, people cleaning the hospitals, but we can’t afford the care that we give to other people.”

Local 150 member Karina Hernandez, a social worker at Central Regional Hospital, told the board, “We are hearing about the surplus revenues that the state has. The surplus revenue last year alone could have wiped out a huge portion of the [State Health Plan] budget shortfall. But you all, and the General Assembly, did not see fit to prioritize state workers, the same workers that take care of you, your families and your communities. Instead they prioritized further tax breaks for the wealthy, for corporations, and to give away private school vouchers for the rich.”

Charles Owens, a healthcare technician at Cherry Hospital and vice president of the Cherry-O’Berry chapter of Local 150, stated, “Don’t make the workers pay for your mistake. You are going to increase the cost of our health care so high that we cannot afford to get sick.”

Local 150 has also been circulating an online petition, “Stop Cut Backs and Price Increases to State Health Plan!” The petition text declares that “State employees already suffer from low wages and record vacancy rates. Any increase in prices and reductions will further push away talented public servants and impact the quality of services we provide to the public. The economy of our state is doing well, and the state has plenty of revenue to cover the budget shortfalls.”

The post UE: NC State Workers Say, ‘Fund Worker Health, not Corporate Wealth’ first appeared on Labor Today.

RALEIGH, CHARLOTTE & SPRING HOPE, NC—Three workers in North Carolina died last year after being exposed to high temperatures while working. Alongside unions and advocates, UE Local 150 members are pushing for new safety policies to prevent future deaths. Members participated in rallies on December 8, 9, and 10 to urge state officials to finalize the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed standards for Heat Illness and Injury Prevention.

At the Raleigh event on December 9, Local 150 steward and utilities department worker for the City of Raleigh Joel Bryan said, “It is imperative that the state and federal government pass common-sense legislation to protect us.” Bryan urged state officials to pass the new OSHA regulations, noting that heat safety affects the workers “growing our food, working in a warehouse, responding to our emergencies, and maintaining our nation’s aging infrastructure.

“We as a society [need to] protect these workers and pass common-sense legislation to ensure that they are protected from the effects of heat related illnesses,” Bryan said. After the rally, members delivered a letter to the Department of Labor.

In a release sent by the coalition, advocates explained that according to the North Carolina Department of Labor (NC DOL), employers operate under the General Duty Clause which states, “Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees conditions of employment and a place of employment free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious injury or serious physical harm to his employees.” Labor and health advocates maintain that this clause is insufficient to protect workers. In the absence of standardized requirements employers can interpret “free from recognized hazards” broadly, and workers are left without clear recourse to advocate for their safety.

The new OSHA standards, if passed, would require several interventions by employers to protect workers from heat. This would include developing and implementing a worksite heat injury and illness prevention plan (HIIPP) with site-specific information to evaluate and control heat hazards in their workplace, identifying heat hazards in both outdoor and indoor work sites, and implementing control measures at or above a certain temperature. The new standards would apply to all employers conducting outdoor and indoor work in all general industry, construction, maritime, and agriculture sectors where OSHA has jurisdiction.

Local 150 members were joined at the event by members of Toxic Free NC (TFNC), El Futuro Es Nuestro (It’s Our Future), The Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN), Hispanic Federation (HF), North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN), North Carolina Justice Center, and The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

The post UE: Local 150 Members Join Coalition to Advocate for Heat Safety in North Carolina first appeared on Labor Today.

NORTH CAROLINA—As public-sector workers, the members of UE Local 150, North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, who work for cities, state hospitals, and public universities across the state know that decisions made by the state legislature affect, and in some cases set, their wages, benefits and working conditions. Recently, the right-wing Republican supermajority in the state General Assembly lowered income tax for the wealthy, which pulls billions of dollars from the state budget that funds wage increases for state workers and other vital public services. Although Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has demonstrated some sympathy with state workers, the fact that the Republicans hold a supermajority of seats means they can override any potential vetoes.

The General Assembly has also passed anti-immigration laws, anti-choice laws, anti-protest laws, voter suppression laws, and further gerrymandered districts along racial lines to keep themselves in power. They changed the legal definition of a “riot” to encompass more forms of free speech and protest.

In an effort to break the Republican supermajority, UE Local 150 revitalized its political action committee this year. The members of the committee educated their fellow workers in their chapters and their communities about the upcoming elections. They also organized canvassing in working-class neighborhoods where members live throughout the state.

The local targeted Granville County as a critical swing district. Several hundred members live in the county who work at the Central Regional Hospital, Murdoch Developmental Center, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the City of Durham. Local 150 focused on hosting educational activities and events, including canvassing days. The work that members did helped flip the state house seat and state senate seat in Granville and the state house seat in nearby Wilson county, contributing to breaking the Republican supermajority.

Tracy Harter, a housekeeper at UNC and vice president of her Local 150 chapter, door-knocked in Butner in October alongside members from the chapter at the Central Regional Hospital. “We talked to people about how they need to bring a photo ID so they are prepared when they go to vote,” said Harter. North Carolina requires voters to present a specific form of government-issued photo ID, a requirement which targets the elderly, minorities, young, and low-income people – all more likely to vote Democratic. Local 150 members protested the passage of this policy in 2018.

“Almost everyone that we talked to seemed like they would vote for candidates for the working class,” Harter continued. “It was good to be involved in everything. Win or lose, it’s great to know we did our part. I would rather lose and know I did everything I could than lose and know I did not make the time to do my part.”

In a newsletter, the local reported that members had participated in the political action committee at a higher level than in any year’s past. Harter explained that this participation helped the local meet its political action goals. “We surpassed our goal in knocking on over 5,000 doors,” she said. “The people that we spoke to, we made sure that they had a voting plan and talked to them about attending the town hall. We had members speaking to people in the communities in both English and Spanish.”

Local 150 hosted a “Candidate Accountability” town hall on October 17 in Oxford with Down Home North Carolina, a community organization that builds multiracial working-class power in the state. The town hall was attended by state house candidate Brian Cohn and state senate candidate Terence Everitt, who listened to workers speak and answered questions. Both Cohn and Everitt won their seats in the election. Harter was one of the leaders who spoke in front of community members and representatives. She spoke about both economic insecurity and the importance of voting, mentioning a precinct that was previously won by a very slim margin.

When asked about future organizing, Harter said, “Going forward, I’m going to do this harder and sooner. The fight is not over. We have to still fight and we can’t just roll over and say better luck in four years. We have to do what we have to. Politicians work for us and we don’t have to take what they are doing. If that means protest, we will protest. If that means calling their office, we will call them and let them know what we want.”

The post UE: Local 150 Helps Break Right-Wing Supermajority in North Carolina first appeared on Labor Today.

• HB 49 allows minors aged sixteen and seventeen to work more than eight hours on Sundays and holidays, even when there is school the next day.
• HB 49 allows parents and school superintendents to waive the limitation that minors aged sixteen and seventeen may only work thirty hours per week when school is in session. The law will also lower the age restriction on minors working more than six consecutive days from seventeen years of age to fifteen years of age.
• HB 49 removes the work hour restrictions for minors aged sixteen and seventeen who are in a “home education program” or who are “enrolled in an approved virtual instruction program in which the minor is separated from the teacher by time only.”
• Under HB 49, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation is allowed to waive restrictions for minors when it is in the minor’s “best interest”, based on “extenuating circumstances” determined on a case-by-case basis.

HB 49 was initially written by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-wing think tank, and sponsored by Florida State Rep. Linda Chaney who explicitly referred to teenagers 16 and older as “youth workers” and “not children.”

The bill took effect in the midst of a major shift in the demographics of its workforce due to the State’s recent crackdown on the employment of migrant workers. The Florida Policy Institute estimates that the first-year cost of DeSantis’ new aggressive policies on migrant workers will exceed $12 billion, not even taking into account the loss of labor suffered by Florida’s agricultural and construction industries.

Chaney is echoing the discourse of industry groups like the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association —a state affiliate of the anti-union National Restaurant Association which represents major employers in Florida such as McDonald’s (a repeat violator of child labor law), Olive Garden, the Walt Disney Co., Universal Orlando, and other restaurant and hotel owners that employ a large percentage of the youth workforce. Research has found that working more than 20 hours per week can hurt children’s academic performance and can increase the risk of skipping school and other behavioral problems, like drug use. Young workers are also more likely to be injured on the job and are less likely to speak up if their employer steals their wages or violates their rights under the NLRA. Given these facts, it seems Florida is trying to replace one group of super-exploited workers with another.

The post Florida Joins Growing List of States Rolling Back Child Labor Laws first appeared on Labor Today.

UPS workers in the region are among the most impacted by heat illnesses and injuries due to climate change in recent years. A result of the company’s ruthless exploitation of its workforce and gross negligence regarding worker safety: this was underscored by the tragic death, in June of this year, of Braden Hasselbeck, an Oklahoma City delivery driver was found, hours after returning to his building, unresponsive at the facility.

In response to multiple worker deaths in the company’s McKinney TX facility and other incidents – including a recent crash involving a fatigued driver – Oklahoma Teamsters have mobilized to take action in solidarity with the struggles of their union, brothers and sisters in North Texas.

Though the national contract, negotiated and ratified last year after a very public and contentious contract campaign, commits UPS to replace a minimum of 28,000 delivery vehicles with air-conditioned models by the expiration of the contract, no new models have been introduced to date.

Across the country, the company has ramped up its efforts to squeeze the maximum amount of production from its workforce, intensifying production harassment, speed-up, and excessive overtime for its drivers rather than taking steps to make safety protocols more effective. Much of the heat illnesses and deaths could’ve been prevented by the introduction of the air-conditioned vehicles promised by the contract. UPS seems to prioritize its stockholders over the safety of its employees.

“UPS Teamsters across the country, including our union siblings in Texas Teamsters Local 767 are facing unbearable and dangerous heat conditions,” said Zakk Flash, a representative of Oklahoma Teamsters Local 886, “we are united in our demand that UPS take immediate action to honor the contract and protect our members’ lives” he continued.

To effectively respond and counter the aggressions of the company, Teamsters will need to develop a class-oriented approach that emphasizes solidarity and militancy. This will require a resolute left-wing within the union that is capable of putting before the membership the most effective strategies and tactics appropriate to the hazards we face.

The post Oklahoma UPS Teamsters Build Solidarity Across Two States first appeared on Labor Today.