For press inquiries, please reach out to Communications Director Erin Bzymek at ebzymek@uwua.net or 202-702-9655.

Ensuring the Transition to Clean Energy Works for Labor

It is no secret that the energy industry is undergoing a significant transition with respect to how electricity is generated and how the consumption of electricity is managed. Utilities are spending billions of dollars in capital investment in natural gas powered generating facilities and billions more in developing wind and solar generation. Meanwhile, energy consumption…

UWUA Challenges Corporate Greed at Aqua America

Corporate greed at Aqua America – one of the largest for-profit water utilities in the U.S. – has come under increasing scrutiny by the UWUA, especially concerning special retirement benefits bestowed on top executives even while management has slashed pension benefits for hourly workers. The UWUA called out management’s hypocrisy on the issue at Aqua’s…

Five Year Extension Announced for Chicago Utility Workers Military Assistance Program

Rick Passarelli, business manager, Local 18007, joined Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald, Peoples Gas President John Kleczynski, and Chancellor Cheryl Hyman of City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) in January, to announce a five-year extension of the Utility Workers Military Assistance Program (UMAP), which will train an additional 250 veterans.…

UWUA Members Settle Contract with FirstEnergy’s Penelec

Members of UWUA System Local 102, Branch 180 have ratified a new union contract with FirstEnergy’s Penelec subsidiary in central Pennsylvania. The contract was approved by 57% of members after the company came up with improvements to a contract offer previously rejected by the Branch 180 members, who work from Penelec worksites in Altoona, Shippensburg,…

The Hypocrisy of “Pension Reform”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com New Jersey’s State Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) once again sits front and center as a focal point with lawmakers debating the state’s financial future. The issue has unfortunately morphed into a power play woven with the threads of political rhetoric. The workers who pay into the pension fund…

2014 Victory Conferences: Building Union Power!

Focus On Mid-Term Elections and Empowerment Through Member-to-Member Program Region III kicked-off this year’s Regional Victory Conferences with a bang as local and national leaders met in Columbus, OH for three days in May. In addition to highlighting pro-working family candidates running for office in the upcoming midterm elections, attendees participated in a series of…

Systems of Safety Training Program Gets Results

The UWUA is entering the last year of a five-year federal grant, obtained through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). NIEHS has focused the grant on hazard awareness and emergency preparation because it recognizes the need for workers to be involved with the changing climate of natural and manmade disasters. Creating a safe…

FirstEnergy continues lockout despite massive winter storms

FirstEnergy is continuing a vicious lockout of 142 UWUA members at its Penelec utility in central Pennsylvania, even as winter storm systems sweep across the northeastern U.S., knocking out electric power for hundreds of thousands of families. The Akron, Ohio-based company locked out the members of UWUA Local 180 – a branch unit of System…