WHEREAS, workers around the world face the same conditions: bosses who maximize their profit by moving their investments without regard to their impacts on communities or the environment. As long as there are places where workers toil for starvation wages without health and safety protections, it’s hard to achieve or maintain good wages or conditions anywhere. We must work collaboratively across borders in order to effectively fight back against the multinational corporations that dominate our economy.

WHEREAS, the US military-industrial complex has an insatiable appetite for war and the threat and preparation for war. Despite having just ended its ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan, the US is increasing its military budget for the coming year to an astounding $768 billion.

WHEREAS, the resources now plowed into war and preparation for war should be devoted to meeting the urgent needs of working class people and addressing the global challenge of climate change. We and the world cannot afford another senseless, wasteful, and destructive military conflict.

WHEREAS, twenty years of the so-called ‘Global War on Terror’ should have taught us that complex international disputes cannot be resolved by military might. Patient, persistent multilateral diplomacy that addresses the security interests of all parties is what is now required.

WHEREAS, the ongoing crisis and war in Ukraine threatens to pull the world into a disastrous nuclear confrontation.

WHEREAS, UE encourages our members to build relationships with workers in other countries through international travel and other exchanges. Due to the pandemic, our opportunities for in-person international exchanges were curtailed in the recent period. However, UE members, officers, and staff participated in numerous online exchange opportunities with union allies around the world.

WHEREAS, US foreign and economic policy has displaced millions of workers across Latin America and the world, forcing workers to flee north for economic security. Immigrants helped build this country and have played a central role in our union since its inception. Employers and the politicians that represent them seek to exploit divisions between immigrant and native-born workers, driving down wages and stripping away hard-won workers’ rights. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents use heavy-handed raids to terrorize communities and workplaces. Following workplace raids, children who are U.S. citizens remain in the country while parents are jailed and then deported. Our immigration detention system unnecessarily locks up hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year, exposing detainees to brutal and inhumane conditions of confinement at massive costs to American taxpayers. Since the inception of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws, immigrant communities have been driven further into the shadows.

WHEREAS, international partnerships inspire UE’s approach to a wide variety of our work. UE’s strong stance on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade and tariff changes was informed by our alliances with the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) in Mexico and Unifor in Canada. As demonstrated in the new scrapbook we developed documenting our 30-year relationship with Zenroren in Japan, our two unions have solidified our positions on the need for peace for working people, and on the need to organize nonunion workers, especially among the growing number of precarious, subcontracted workers.

WHEREAS, by remaining unwavering in our commitment to international solidarity in the coming period, we advance our interests in promoting democratic, rank-and-file worker control at home and abroad.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 12th UE LOCAL 150 CONVENTION:

1. Joins the Southern Workers Assembly demand to cut the bloated US Military Budget in half to meet the needs of the people, not corporate greed;
2. Demands an end to the separation of immigrant families, an end to all concentration and/or internment camps for immigrants, and an end to the criminalization of asylum seekers, refugees and those who provide humanitarian aid to them;
3. Demands the federal government impose an immediate moratorium on all ICE raids, arrests, deportations, harassment, seizures, I-9 audits, Secure Communities, the 287(g) and E-Verify programs, and other abuses of undocumented workers;
4. Demands the US government defuse the crisis and lay a foundation for its diplomatic resolution and that the U.S. should immediately declare its policy and commitment that NATO will not advance any further toward the Russian border.
5. Continues to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine, and all those under occupation. 
6. Reaffirms support for the UE-Unifor North American Solidarity Project;
7. Reaffirms support for the Strategic Organizing Alliance with the FAT;
8. Reaffirms the deepening of our relationship with Zenroren;
9. Stands in full solidarity with allied unions as they attempt to fight the privatization of state resources, including the CUT and the working class of Brazil as they resist extreme right-wing President Bolsonaro and his attempts to privatize Brazilian resources, and the CGT in France as they fight against the privatization of state-owned energy resources;
10. Commits to building relations with unions abroad through direct contact, progressive forums and networks, and other means, as well as establishing and deepening relationships with workers in sister shops who globally share our employers;
11. Condemns the murder and persecution of trade unionists, harassment of unions, and union busting anywhere in the world;
12. Encourages locals and members to increase their involvement in our international program and to make contributions to the UE-FAT Solidarity Fund and UE Research and Education Fund;
13. Commits to ongoing worker-to-worker exchanges with our allies and educational work with our members in order to deepen our alliances and understanding of global labor conditions so that we may engage in collective action together;
14. Encourages the participation in global alliances to fight the rise of precarious (part-time, temp, subcontracted, and insecure) jobs.

Submitted by the UE Local 150 Executive Board