The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) was the first union to endorse Bernie Sanders’ s2020 presidential campaign. At Bernie’s kickoff rally in Brooklyn in March of last year, UE Local 506 president Scott Slawson gave a rousing and militant speech, inspiring the crowd to chant, “Strike, strike, strike!”

Now the Bernie campaign is over, and the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the nation into economic crisis. Naturally, workers have sustained the greatest damage. In this moment, UE is calling on labor unions to fight harder for their own members and for the broader working class. The union itself has created online resources for nonunion workers, and has published a special issue of UE Steward dedicated to pandemic-related organizing.

UE has also joined with the Democratic Socialists of America to form the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, a project that connects nonunion workers facing pandemic-related workplace issues to trained volunteers who can provide logistical support, assisting them in organizing their coworkers and fighting back.