Scott Slawson
General President
“We have not changed our model since 1936:
We are a Rank and File Union.
Our Members Run This Union”
Scott speaks at rally for Bernie Sanders at Brooklyn College
Posted by Erie News Now on Saturday, March 2, 2019
Scott speaks at 506 picket line during strike in the summer of 2023
My experience
As President of local 506, I have led two strikes of 1,500 workers at our local that won significant gains. I have also helped guide our local through bargaining numerous contracts and have defended our rights when our employer transferred our work and sold our plant. I’ve led numerous grievance fights and arbitration proceedings and assisted with coordinated national bargaining with our previous employer, General Electric, co-chairing the UE-General Electric Conference Board for six years.
I have had the honor to serve on UE’s General Executive Board for 11 years and as Eastern Region Financial Secretary for the same amount of time. During this time, I helped our union make difficult decisions such as transitioning from three regions to two.
I have been involved in international solidarity work with our union, and led the effort to bring all General Electric unions together worldwide.
I have participated in several new organizing drives and have helped welcome newly formed locals, including many of our graduate worker locals, into our union through leading exchanges and trainings on how to set up local structures. Finally, I have led our union’s effort on the Green Locomotive Project, a critical initiative to unite the fights for good jobs and climate justice.
My Vision for Ue
In the last four years, our power to take on our employers and the billionaire class has grown exponentially as we have welcomed 30,000 new members. Now we must invest in organizing our core industries, like manufacturing, higher education, retail grocery, rail crew transport, the public sector, government contractors and the South. Let’s build our national strike fund and invest in national union infrastructure to support the bold fights needed to protect our right to organize and bargain, especially now when the courts and the NLRB are pitted against us.
Our union must support all locals, in the form of robust National Office programs that assist locals with membership drives, financial practices and administrative functions. We must recruit, develop and field well-trained staff who are able to lend their experience developing campaigns, winning union elections, winning strong contracts, and developing new leaders.
And as the current administration threatens our right to freedom of speech and assembly, as ICE kidnaps activists and union leaders off the streets and the working people find themselves without political options that represent our interests, UE must continue to be the beacon for a fighting labor movement, for a labor party, and for the idea that labor creates all wealth.
SCOTT ON BIG ISSUES
“We need to be prepared to fight, not just for our locals, but collectively for all of our locals. We need to be collectively prepared to mount an attack and go on the offensive to beat back those that choose to block our advancement.”
— Scott Slawson introducing “Civil Liberties” Resolution at UE Convention
scott in the news
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UE NEWS
Local 506 President: Prepare to Go on Offense
“We need to be prepared to fight, not just for our locals, but collectively for all of our locals. We need to be collectively prepared to mount an attack and go on the offensive to beat back those that choose to block our advancement.”
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jacobin
Working People Aren’t Going Quietly (by Scott Slawson)
“Locomotive manufacturing workers in Erie, Pennsylvania, recently walked off the job against concessions and two-tier wages. The president of UE Local 506 explains what's at stake.”
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JACOBIN
1,400 Pennsylvania Locomotive Manufacturing Workers Are on the Verge of a Strike
“Workers at the Erie, Pennsylvania, train manufacturing complex Wabtec are poised to walk off the job should they decide the company’s contract offer is insufficient. One of their main priorities is a rarity for US unions: the right to strike over grievances.”
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labor notes
Locomotive Builders Forge Green Rail Project
“Union workers who make diesel locomotives at a plant in Pennsylvania are pushing ahead with their campaign to manufacture more green-powered locomotives.”
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Labor notes
Erie Locomotive Workers Avert Strike with New Contract at Wabtec
“Three months after the largest manufacturing strike of the Trump presidency so far, locomotive plant workers in Erie, Pennsylvania, have a deal. Electrical Workers (UE) Locals 506 and 618 ratified a four-year contract on June 12.”
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GO ERIE
UE’s Slawson to Speak at Bernie Sanders Rally
“Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will hold the first event of his upcoming presidential campaign Saturday morning at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, N.Y. and he's asked Scott Slawson, president of Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of American, to join him.”
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PENNSYLVANIA CAPITAL-STAR
Wabtec strike passes 30-day mark as workers push for greener locomotives
“[T]he 1,400 members of UE are asking the company to become more environmentally friendly, by allowing its members to build a certain percentage of its greenest locomotives at the Erie plant. “
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spiked
The Democratic town that took a chance on Trump
“Tom Slater reports from Erie, Pennsylvania, a Rust Belt city refusing to be written off.”
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manufacturing drive
Why are workers at Wabtec’s Pennsylvania manufacturing site striking?
“More than a thousand union members have been on strike from the rail equipment manufacturer for nearly a month in a disagreement over hourly pay increases and paid time off benefits.”
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AMerica's work force union
UEW Local 506 members go on strike at Wab-Tec
“Scott Slawson, United Electrical Workers Local 506 President, appeared on the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and announced Local 506 members who work at Wab-Tec have gone on strike after management’s refusal to pay employees what they believe is deserved compensation.”
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GRIST
Pennsylvania locomotive manufacturing workers are striking for greener jobs
“A 1,400-worker strike at a locomotive plant is part of a larger trend of national labor organizing and calls for a just transition.”
