UAW Region 9A Weekly Newsletter: September 26
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LOCAL & ORGANIZING UPDATES
Local 379 Members Practice Picket After 98% Vote to Authorize Strike
On Thursday, Local 379 members at Cummins escalated their ongoing contract campaign by holding a practice picket outside their plant in Bloomfield, CT. Thank you to Congressman Larson and State Senator Lesser for their support for our members! After management no-showed to the 13th scheduled bargaining session last Friday, 98% of members voted to authorize a strike. The membership is ready to fight—and to strike if necessary—to win the job security, fair wages, and improved contract language they deserve.
CFU-UAW Rally for a Strong Contract
Tuesday, September 30 | 1pm | Paulson Center (181 Mercer Street)
In February 2024, contract faculty across NYU voted by an overwhelming 89% to form a union. Since the election, a majority of faculty participated in ratifying initial bargaining goals by a 99% vote, signed a petition urging the administration to agree to real academic freedom, and a majority of faculty have joined bargaining sessions throughout the past year as observers.
Despite all this, the NYU administration is refusing to agree to improved job security and the academic freedom that goes with it; fair and equitable compensation; shared governance; and expanded benefits that support the critical work contract faculty do at NYU. Faculty have met with local elected officials and leafleted students and NYU colleagues to discuss the importance of a strong first contract with the larger community – given the unprecedented attacks on higher education, these issues are more critical than ever.
RSVP to join supporters across the NYU community on Tuesday to tell the NYU administration to recognize contract faculty immense contribution through teaching, research, and service and agree to a contract that reflects the value of their work.
GRLP Union Reaches Tentative Agreement After 10 Weeks on Strike
After ten weeks on strike, ALAA Local 2325 members at Goddard Riverside Law Project won a tentative agreement last Friday. Workers faced intense union-busting, including management refusing to bargain and attempting to cut their wages, and learned of management’s plans to spin off the work of the Law Project from the Goddard Riverside Community Center.
However, workers forced management back to the table last week and won a one-year tentative agreement that provides increased salaries, a retention bonus, and increased safeguards around working hours that allow workers to go back to serving clients during the transition. Congratulations to the GRLP Union on their unity and strength throughout the strike!
Community Rallies with Local 2320 Member Against Unjust ICE Detention
On Monday, UAW and community members rallied in solidarity with Local 2320 member Leslie Perlera Gonzalez to protest the violent arrest of her husband Hernan Elias Escobar by ICE on Wednesday in Massachusetts. Speakers included Darlene Lombos from the Greater Boston Labor Council, Chaton Green from the Boston Building Trades, Malden Mayor Gary Christenson, and many other community leaders. Hernan continues to be unjustly detained at a facility in Plymouth.
If you live or work in Massachusetts, save the LUCE defense hotline number at 617-370-5023 if you want to connect with other people in your community who are taking action to keep each other safe. As always, members are encouraged to use the UAW’s hotline for immigration questions and emergencies. In the event that a member is experiencing an unexpected change in immigration status or any other immigration-related issue, call this number to be connected with legal counsel: 888-416-2110.
Local 2320 Fights Back Against Probationary Firing of Union Steward at LSNYC
Legal Services New York City (LSNYC) fired one of our members—a newly hired attorney who was just one day shy of her probation ending. The quality of her work was not the issue, but her becoming a union steward (known as a delegate) and a voice for the unheard seemed to be a problem for the boss.
The member is part of Legal Services Staff Association (LSSA), NOLSW, UAW 2320, and the bosses have been put on notice with a gauntlet action at the member's first grievance hearing that our union fights back!
FROM REGION 9A
Region 9A Joins Region 9 for Training at Local 677 Mack Trucks in Allentown, PA
Saturday, November 15 | 7 AM - 4 PM | New York, NY to Allentown, PA
UAW Local 677 (Mack Trucks) is inviting Region 9A members for a joint education session at their local in Allentown, Pennsylvania. UAW members at Mack trucks have been at the forefront of the free trade crisis in recent years, going on strike in their most recent contract negotiations in 2023 to defend their jobs.
Join the Local 677 Education Committee to share and build together as we discuss UAW 101 and the UAW's core values as well as our joint labor struggles as a working class. Transportation from NYC will leave at 7 AM and depart from Allentown at 4 PM.
Join the Region 9A Veterans Council at the Annual Dinner Dance
Saturday, November 8 | 6 PM | Doubletree by Hilton, Bristol, CT
Join the UAW Region 9A Veterans Council at the 27th Annual Dinner Dance! The 2025 Dinner Dance will be held on Saturday, November 8, at the Doubletree by Hilton in Bristol, Connecticut.
The reception will begin at 6 PM, and dinner will begin at 7 PM. Tickets are $65 per person, and tables are $650 for 10 seats. Please contact Tina Ross at trodriguez@uaw.net to purchase tickets.
COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM (CAP)
NYC Canvass for Zohran & Get Your New General Election UAW for Zohran Shirt
With just five weeks until Election Day, join a canvass to get Zohran Mamdani across the finish line to be NYC’s next mayor! Sign up here to canvass in neighborhoods across the city.
If you sign up to canvass and want a brand new UAW for Zohran t-shirt featuring the general election date, please email James Taylor (jhtaylor@uaw.net) and Donca Hackney (dhackney@uaw.net) to pick one up from the Region 9A office.
Protect International Workers: Submit a Comment to DHS on F & J Visa Rule Change
UAW members are mobilizing against a burdensome new rule, the latest in a sequence of xenophobic directives coming from the Trump administration.
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security published a rule that shortens the length of time international students and scholars on F and J visas may remain in the U.S. before applying for a visa renewal, as well as imposes restrictions on graduate students seeking to change programs.
These rules are designed to add layers of bureaucracy to an already daunting and complicated process, and they would further discourage international students and scholars from coming to the U.S. If implemented, this rule would negatively impact thousands of UAW academic workers nationwide.
All UAW members are invited to take a few minutes to submit a public comment—tell DHS how this rule change will harm your teaching and research, hurt higher education, and restrict workers’ rights.
Massachusetts: Testify in Support of Paid Family Leave for Grad Workers
Graduate workers from across Massachusetts are coming together in the state legislature to testify for our rights to paid family and medical leave and unemployment protections. All the other workers on campus have access to these essential programs while student workers are left behind. We have a bill to change that (S.747 / H.1336).
We need you to come out and testify at the hearing to tell legislators why we need paid leave and unemployment protections! Sign up here to show interest in testifying at the hearing, aka telling your story of why you and your coworkers need these protections. You do not need to be a union member or graduate worker to participate—anyone who wants us to have these protections is welcome.
Region 9A CAP in the News
“Workers from more than three dozen labor unions and advocacy groups are mobilizing with elected officials in Lower Manhattan this evening to protest the ongoing abuse of immigrants in custody at 26 Federal Plaza. The coalition includes hundreds of members of 1199 SEIU, AFGE Local 3911, Communications Workers of America, Laborers’ Local 1010, and UAW Region 9A. Protesters will encircle the building to demand ‘an immediate end to ICE’s violent and unlawful actions in New York.’”
- The American Prospect: Workers Demand Justice for Immigrants as More Die in ICE Custody (Sept. 25)
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL UAW
Join the Higher Ed Labor United Coalition’s Upcoming Meetings
The UAW is part of Higher Education Labor United, a national organization founded in 2021 to unite workers throughout U.S. higher education. HELU brings together unions that represent staff, student workers, adjunct, contingent, and tenured faculty, postdocs, university health system workers, and others to create and pursue a unified vision for higher education and to add our strength to a reinvigorated U.S. labor movement. Higher ed members are invited to join HELU’s upcoming meetings:
- October 6: Webinar: Politicizing Accreditation in the South and Beyond: The Commission for Public Higher Education
- October 16: HELU Open House
- October 29: Skeleton Crews at Academic Medical Centers: The Dangerous Results of Bare-Bones Funding
- November 5: Library Workers Organizing Meeting & Strategy Session
Center for Working-Class Politics Report Release with UAW President Shawn Fain
Tuesday, September 30 | 7 PM | Zoom
For this study the Center for Working-Class Politics, the Labor Institute and Rutgers LEARN partnered with YouGov to conduct an original survey of 3,000 voters in four key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. These states are not only pivotal in national elections, but also home to large working-class populations that have experienced significant economic dislocation, especially from mass layoffs.
It is our belief that in order to reduce inequality and protect American democracy, political strategies that successfully build worker power and counter corporate influence are desperately needed. Our goal was to test whether strong, pro-worker messaging—especially from candidates operating inside and/or outside the Democratic Party —could resonate with voters who feel politically alienated. The full report will be available on September 24.
SOLIDARITY REQUESTS
Massachusetts Protect Our Care Town Hall: Stop the Cuts with Corporate Fair Share
Tuesday, October 14 | 5:30 - 7 PM | Dewitt Center, Boston, MA
Join us for a community town hall on Corporate Fair Share and other options to protect our state programs. Massachusetts is facing the threat of deep federal budget cuts that will cost the state billions and hurt our healthcare, food assistance programs, education, infrastructure, and other public services.
That’s why the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition of faith, labor, and community groups is calling for raising new progressive revenue as well as tapping into the rainy day fund to prevent harmful cuts. Key to that discussion is RUM's Corporate Fair Share proposal to combat offshore tax avoidance by asking the world’s most profitable mega-corporations to pay their fair share. It’s the fairest, simplest, and most popular way to defend public services like healthcare and education that we all rely upon!
Labor for Democracy: No Kings Rally
Saturday, October 18 | Nationwide
In June, we did what many claimed was impossible: peacefully mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and declare with one voice: America has No Kings. Since then, the Trump administration has doubled down on sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They are targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants. Threatening to overtake elections. Gutting healthcare, environmental protections, and education when families need them most. Rigging maps to silence voters. Ignoring mass shootings at our schools and in our communities. Driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies, as families struggle.
The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty. Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and bigger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.
Because this country does not belong to kings, dictators, or tyrants. It belongs to We the People—the people who care, who show up, and the ones who fight for dignity, a life we can afford, and real opportunity. Join or organize a union contingent, bring union banners and signs, and wear your union shirts.
Union Hiring Hall
- UAW International Union | Financial Researcher | Detroit, MI
- New Yorkers United for Child Care | Organizer | Manhattan & Bronx, NY
- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders | Paid Internship | Washington, DC
- Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union | Organizer | New Brunswick, NJ
- Maine AFL-CIO | Campaigns Director | Augusta, ME
UPCOMING EVENTS
2025 UAW Membership Mobilization Institute
September 28 - October 3 | Onaway, MI
2025 UAW Local Union Officers Institute
October 5 - 10 | Onaway, MI
UAW Organizing Conference
October 12-17 | Onaway, MI
UAW Skilled Trades Conference
October 20-24 | Detroit, MI
Coalition of Labor Union Women Conference
November 9-11 | San Diego, CA
UAW 101 & Core Values Education Training
November 15 | Allentown, PA