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Auto Workers

With No Reform Caucus, Auto Workers Would Not Be On Strike

October 1, 2023 Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
One lesson is that member power does not have to start from a supermajority; that’s unlikely. UAW members are on strike today, with inspiring levels of rank-and-file energy, because four years ago a small group of activists founded a new reform caucus. That caucus, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), boldly took advantage of an unexpected opportunity, organized like crazy, and won elections. Its candidates are now leading the union. If UAWD had not existed and organized hard, this current fight that has potential to change the stakes for the entire labor movement would not be happening.

Biden’s Picket Line Visit Doesn’t Mean He Is On Our Side

September 28, 2023 Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice. , , , , ,
Yesterday, Joe Biden became the first sitting president to visit a picket line of striking workers. It is historic. A few hours later, Jacobin published an article entitled “The Militancy of the UAW Strike Forced Joe Biden to Take a Side and Walk the Picket Line,” by Nick French. Jacobin is right that Biden’s visit to the picket line results from the UAW strike’s strength. But Jacobin is dead wrong in its assessment that Biden is “on the side of the working class.” Instead, Biden’s visit is a product of the capitalist crisis in which both Trump and Biden are vying for influence over the working class in a tight presidential race.

First Tire Workers To Organize In 40 Years Win First Contract

September 28, 2023 Finley Williams, Labor Notes. , , , ,
It was late summer 2017 at the Overtyme Bar and Grill, a hotspot off a busy highway in Macon, Georgia, and Kumho Tire plant worker Mario Smith had important questions for local United Steelworkers (USW) president Alex Perkins: he wanted to know how he could bring a union to the one-year-old factory. Now six years later—after two elections, many National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cases, a virulent union-busting campaign, and the triumphant solidarity of the factory workers—that union has gained its first-ever collective bargaining agreement with Kumho Tire management, the first tire workers to unionize in the United States in 40 years.

Ford And GM Agree To End At Least One Tier; Stellantis Still Holding Out

September 27, 2023 Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. , , , ,
The Auto Workers announced encouraging progress in their negotiations with Ford and General Motors September 22, including an end to one of the many concessionary tiers in the union’s contract. In 2015 workers at Chrysler (now Stellantis) voted down a tentative agreement 2 to 1 because it continued an onerous two-tier wage system—and even introduced new tiers. UAW President Dennis Williams (later jailed for corruption) was pissed. At a meeting of local officials called to present that deal, Williams spluttered, “Ending two-tier is bullshit.” The UAW still has other tiers to address, but it looks like Williams was wrong. Both Ford and GM have agreed to put workers at certain parts plants back on the same wage scale as assembly plant workers.

Workers Around The World Stand With Striking US Autoworkers

September 27, 2023 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , , , , , , , , , , ,
As the first-ever simultaneous strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis continues, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union is being cheered on not only by a majority of Americans, but also by much of the international labor movement. Over the past two weeks, the UAW has received messages of solidarity from worker organizations in multiple countries, including a letter from the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and an email from Malaysia’s National Union of Transport Equipment & Allied Industries Workers — both of which represent autoworkers in their respective countries. “The world is watching, and the people are on our side,” UAW President Shawn Fain said last Friday.

Scolding Striking Auto Workers In Advance For Wrecking Economy

September 27, 2023 Paige Oamek, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , , ,
The first person quoted in the New York Times’ rundown (9/19/23) on the United Auto Workers strike was a lawyer representing management from Littler Mendelson, the go-to firm for big corporations’ union avoidance. “Right now, unions are cool,” said Michael Lotito of Littler Mendelson. But they “have a risk of not being very cool if you have a five-month strike in LA and an X-month strike in how many other states.” The article, “Strike Is a High-Stakes Gamble for Autoworkers and the Labor Movement” highlights the “real pitfalls” of a so-called prolonged strike against the big three automakers: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (which absorbed Chrysler).

Scabs Deployed At GM Parts Distribution Centers

September 26, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Auto workers at the Big 3 expanded their strike last Friday to a key vulnerability: parts distribution centers that supply dealerships with everything from water pumps to brake drums and spark plugs to replacement bumpers. On Tuesday morning, General Motors began bringing in temps hired for $14 an hour to attempt to keep some of the parts and accessories flowing. Parts distribution centers ship after-sales spare parts and accessories to car dealerships on a just-in-time basis. “If there is anything that could possibly break down that you need to get replaced, it probably came from a Customer Care and Aftersales (CCA) facility,” said strike captain Devon McKenzie

Auto Bargaining In Canada—Stuck In The Past?

September 24, 2023 Tony Leah, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
Bargaining with the Detroit 3 auto corporations is happening in Canada and the United States at the same time this year—the first time that bargaining has aligned since the disastrous bankruptcy negotiations and forced concessions of 2009. Unifor just reached a tentative agreement with Ford earlier this week, while the United Auto Workers’ strike against selected Ford, Stellantis and General Motors plants is ongoing. This is indicative of the major differences in the strategies of the two unions. The UAW, under new leadership, is doing things dramatically differently—raising bold demands, mobilizing their membership, and developing innovative strategies and tactics.

Auto Workers Strike Spreads To 38 Parts Depots

September 23, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon and Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
The clock has ticked and tocked for two of the Big 3 automakers. At noon 5,000 more members of the Auto Workers (UAW) at 38 parts distribution centers for Stellantis and General Motors walked off the job. The facilities are spread across 20 states. They join 13,000 workers at assembly plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri who have been out for a week—for a total of 18,000 Big 3 auto workers on picket lines nationwide. (See a map of all struck facilities here.) The escalation adds a new type of facility to the mix. Parts distribution centers (PDCs) supply after-sales spare parts and accessories to dealerships, a very profitable part of the companies’ business.

Mexican Auto Parts Workers Face Blacklist After Union Campaign

September 22, 2023 Charlie Saperstein and Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. , , ,
In August 2022, auto parts workers at VU Manufacturing won a landmark election to gain recognition for a new independent union, the Mexican Workers’ League (La Liga). A year later, after refusing to negotiate a new contract, the company has shut down, leaving 400 workers jobless—and 71 workers without their legally-mandated severance pay. VU is located in the border city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, where politicians brag about maintaining “labor peace” in the foreign-owned factories known as maquiladoras. This “peace” is largely mediated by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), a powerful company-friendly union notorious for signing contracts behind workers’ backs and preventing them from organizing genuine, democratic unions.

Joe Biden Is Afraid Of The UAW Strike; That’s A Good Thing

September 21, 2023 Enid Brain and Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. , , , , ,
At midnight on September 15, the UAW began its strike at three plants of the the Big 3 — GM, Ford, and Stellantis. While limited, this strike immediately sent shockwaves across the nation with every bourgeois news outlet turning to cover the strike. Indeed, the strike is proving very popular: 75 percent of Americans side with the UAW in their fight. This strike is part of what some have dubbed a “Hot Labor Summer,” characterized by an averted strike at UPS and the on-going entertainment industry strikes amongst many smaller strikes and labor actions, like Blue Cross Blue Shield workers also represented by the UAW. It’s placed the working class at the center of the national agenda.

UAW Continues To Fiercely ‘Stand Up’ Despite Company Attacks

September 20, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Entering the fifth day of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, 13,000 out of 146,000 UAW workers continue to walk the picket lines in front of three auto plants in Missouri, Michigan, and Ohio, belonging to each of the three largest automakers in the country, GM, Stellantis, and Ford. This partial strike has the potential to build up to a strike of all 146,000 members depending on how the auto companies respond to contract negotiations. The UAW has dubbed this strategy, which keeps the union a step ahead of the automakers at all times, the “Stand Up Strike”. UAW President Shawn Fain appeared on MSNBC Sunday to talk about updates in negotiations.

UAW President Sets Friday Deadline For Companies To Meet Demands

September 20, 2023 Shawn Fain, In These Times. , , , ,
Hey UAW family. Last week, we announced the launch of the Stand-Up Strike. I want to give a major shout out to the thousands of members who are on the picket line right now, fighting for all of us. For the first time in our union’s history, we’re on strike at all three of the Big Three. The stand up strike is a new approach to striking. Instead of striking all plants all at once, select locals will be called on to stand up and walk out on strike. This is our generation’s answer to the movement that built our union: the sit-down strikes of 1937. Then, as now, we faced massive inequality across our society. Then, as now, our industry is rapidly changing, and workers are being left behind.

America’s Auto Workers: On Strike Against Inequality, Again

September 18, 2023 Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org. , , , , , ,
This past Thursday night, just hours before the expiration of the United Auto Workers contract with Detroit’s Big Three, UAW president Shawn Fain had plenty on his mind. Most of that plenty would be obvious and predictable. The impending expiration of his union’s auto industry contract, with no new pact in sight. The state of the union’s readiness for what could be the UAW’s most pivotal strike since 1937. But Fain had something else on his mind as well: the continuing and unforgivable maldistribution of America’s income and wealth. “Just as in the 1930s,” Fain reminded his fellow auto workers, “we’re living in a time of stunning inequality throughout our society.”

France: Stellantis Workers Walk Out To Demand Breaks Amid Heat Wave

September 17, 2023 Dorian Maffei, Left Voice. , , , ,
Last week, France was blanketed by a dome of heat, resulting in exceptionally warm temperatures. It even broke the previous record set in 1949, making September 4 the hottest day ever recorded in France during the month of September. The French national meteorological service, Météo-France, points to a remarkably long and intense heat wave which has lasted late into the season, clearly pointing to the impact of climate change, which tends to extend summer heatwaves. At the Stellantis plant in Hordain, France, where Peugeot and Citroën vehicles are assembled, outside temperatures exceeded a scorching 30°C (86°F) every afternoon from September 5 to 10.
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