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Auto Workers

Unifor, UAW Now At Odds Over Trump’s Auto Tariffs

April 27, 2025 Jackie Charniga and Eric D. Lawrence, Portside. , , , , ,
Unifor National President Lana Payne no longer sees eye to eye with UAW leader Shawn Fain. In a split with its Canadian sibling, the UAW endorsed President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on foreign-made vehicles and parts — the same tariffs Payne called “reckless and dangerous” for the entire integrated auto industry. Payne told the Free Press on Thursday, the day a new round of tariffs took effect, that she hasn't met with Fain in “some time," adding that she isn't sure where he's getting his labor figures to support the pro-tariff stance. “I don’t know that I would say we have common goals here. Unifor is opposed to these tariffs that the president of the United States is placing on the Canadian auto industry,” she said.

Members In Motion Changed The Game In Daimler Contract Campaign

January 9, 2025 Chris Brooks, Jonah Furman, and Mike Morrison, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
Inspired by the success of the Big 3 strike, United Auto Workers members at Daimler Truck North America ran a very different kind of contract campaign this year than we ever had before. The 7,300 members at DTNA’s four North Carolina plants and parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis were very active, informed, and involved in the bargaining process. This is not how the union had done things in the past. Here’s what we did differently, and some ideas on how to keep members in the loop and in motion for an effective contract campaign.

Marathon Negotiations Bring Key Breakthroughs For VW Workers

December 24, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Volkswagen workers in Germany secured major breakthroughs in their fight against the company’s planned cost-cutting measures. The agreement, finalized during the week of December 16 after marathon-length negotiations, preserves jobs, protects plant operations, and ensures long-term collective bargaining agreements, representing a significant departure from management’s initial proposals of plant closures, salary cuts, and mass redundancies. “No site will be closed, no one will be made redundant and our in-house collective bargaining agreement will be secured in the long term,” said works council chair Daniela Cavallo in the follow-up to the negotiations.

German VW Workers Strike To Save Their Jobs

December 12, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. , , , , , ,
Over 100,000 autoworkers struck nine Volkswagen plants in Germany on Dec. 2. The primary issues are VW’s plans to close three German plants and cut workers’ pay. The plant closings would be the first in the company’s 87-year history. VW’s previous contract with IG Metall, the union representing German autoworkers, did not allow plant closures or job cuts, and workers’ wages were higher than most factory workers in Germany. But the contract, which expired in December, prevented workers from striking. The strikes, called by IG Metall, each lasted two hours. About 20,000 workers gathered inside and outside VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, where its largest German plant is also located, on Dec. 5.

Despite Stellantis’ Broken Promises, Auto Workers Keep Up The Fight

December 9, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
On December 1, Portuguese business executive Carlos Tavares abruptly resigned as CEO of one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world. On December 2, the United Auto Workers (UAW), one of the largest unions in the country, issued a statement welcoming the resignation, as well as announcing that Stellantis finalizing an employee leasing agreement with workers in Kokomo, Indiana, long overdue after Tavares’ delays. In 2023, autoworkers across the United States went on a historic strike against the three largest automakers in the United States: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.

The UAW Is Bargaining For Better Conditions At Volkswagen

October 15, 2024 Sarah Jaffe, In These Times. , , , , , ,
Turning onto Volkswagen Drive in Chattanooga, the first big shiny building you pass is actually an Amazon fulfillment center. It’s only a little up the road that you come upon the VW campus, the sleek silver buildings rising from the hills and trees, a series of windowless hulks, one of them proudly proclaiming its GoTo ZERO IMPACT FACTORY. As if a factory can have zero impact on the community, on the people who go to work there each day, let alone the environment, the climate. Factories shape towns. They always have. They shape the world. The workers at the VW plant are trying to do some shaping of their own, now that they’ve won their union.

When Stellantis Fired Temps At Toledo Jeep, We Marched On Management

May 24, 2024 Benjamin Hinsey, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
After we struck for six weeks last fall and won a contract that promised a path to seniority, auto workers are being screwed over again by Stellantis. The firings were a one-two punch. First, in January, Stellantis terminated 500 temp workers—“supplementals” in the company’s jargon—in Kokomo, Indiana, and at a parts sequencing facility near its Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. Then in March, the mass firings expanded to 341 temp workers at the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, where I work making Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators, one of the plants that launched the Stand-Up Strike. Workers got the news that they were terminated via text message.

Progressive Organizations Host Pro-UAW Rally In Tuscaloosa

May 6, 2024 Chance Phillips, Alabama Political Reporter. , , , , ,
With the union election at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa set to start next Monday, both Mercedes and the United Auto Workers are redoubling their efforts to sway employees to their sides. On Sunday, progressive advocacy organizations More Perfect Union and the Poor People’s Campaign held a rally at the Christian Community Church of Tuscaloosa, following a Saturday rally at Avondale Brewing Company in Birmingham. The several dozen attendees, including pro-UAW Mercedes employees and their families, were provided free barbecue, buttons, stickers, and t-shirts.

In Relay Race To Organize The South, Baton Passes To Mercedes Workers

May 1, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
Michael Göbel, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, stepped down from his post today, according to a video message that workers were shown. Göbel had groused in an April captive-audience meeting about a worker’s claim that Mercedes had come for the “Alabama discount”: low wages. His departure is another win for Mercedes-Benz workers, who already scored pay bumps and an end to wage tiers—and they haven’t even voted on the union yet. The company and Alabama politicians are ramping up their anti-union campaign as an election draws near. The 5,200 Mercedes workers at a factory complex and electric battery plant outside Tuscaloosa will vote May 13-16 on whether to join the United Auto Workers.

UAW’s Chattanooga Victory: Score One For The North In Our Endless Civil War

April 23, 2024 Harold Meyerson , Portside. , , , , , , ,
History—good history, if conditional history—was made last Friday in Chattanooga, as workers at Volkswagen’s factory there voted to join the United Auto Workers by an overwhelming margin of 2,628 to 985, a 73 percent to 27 percent landslide. The vote was historic on any number of counts. It marks the UAW’s first successful unionization of a foreign-owned auto factory after a number of failed attempts; it marks the first unionization in many decades of a major group of workers in the non-union South; it may even mark the rebirth of a powerful union movement, something the nation has lacked over the past 40 years.

UAW Wins Organizing Election At Volkswagen Tennessee Plant

April 20, 2024 Luke Ramseth, Portside. , , , , ,
United Auto Workers achieved a historic organizing victory Friday night at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee plant as workers voted overwhelmingly to join the union following a three-day election. The vote count was 2,628-985, according to unofficial results released by the automaker, the union and a National Labor Relations Board tally posted on X. "Volkswagen Chattanooga workers voted in favor of union representation in their workplace this week," the automaker said in a statement. "The vote was administered through a democratic, secret ballot vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. ... We will await certification of the results by the NLRB. Volkswagen thanks its Chattanooga workers for voting in this election."

Mercedes Tries To Punch Down Alabama Union Momentum

April 12, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama were forced to attend 20-minute anti-union meetings with the company’s top management today. Recordings obtained by Labor Notes show top management dangled carrots and put on a contrite-boss act, promising to do better. Workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board on April 5 for the first-ever election to unionize the 5,200 people who work at the plant. Mercedes claims to be neutral in the election, but it’s also listed as a supporter of the Business Council of Alabama’s anti-union website, Alabama Strong. The Auto Workers (UAW) has filed multiple unfair labor practice charges accusing the company of retaliating against pro-union workers.

Southern Auto Workers Are Rising

April 6, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Auto workers are gearing up to smash through anti-union bulwarks in Alabama and Tennessee. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the only Volkswagen factory in the world without a union, votes will be counted April 19 as 4,300 workers who make the Atlas SUV and the ID.4 electric vehicle decide whether to join the United Auto Workers. “We didn’t think things would happen so fast,” said VW worker Victor Vaughn. Momentum spurred them forward. The organizing committee recruited 300 co-workers as election captains. “We have well over 90 percent coverage within the plant, every position, every line,” said Vaughn.

A 32-Hour Workweek Is Ours For The Taking

April 3, 2024 Sarah Jaffe, In These Times. , , , ,
The United Auto Workers won many of their demands in their groundbreaking, six-week strike in 2023, but one of them — despite not making it into their new contracts with the Big Three automakers — has the potential to radically shift organized labor’s priorities and unify an often fractious movement in ways not seen in decades. The demand is for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay. From the beginning of the strike, the audacious proposal captured public attention beyond the usual labor watchers because it upends decades-old expectations of what unions should want, signaling the working class has priorities beyond simply holding onto jobs.

The UAW’s 2028 National Strike Should Center Medicare For All

April 1, 2024 Jonathan Michels and Will Cox, Jacobin. , , , , , ,
The United Auto Workers (UAW) are laying the groundwork for workers across multiple sectors to join them in a general strike on International Workers Day, May 1, 2028. UAW president Shawn Fain’s call to utilize labor power — four hundred thousand working members and six hundred thousand retirees make up the UAW alone — for the “good of the entire working class” is a major departure from business-as-usual unionism and represents a potential game changer for social movements to secure public goods, including Medicare for All, that extend beyond the shop floor.
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