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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).

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.

Workers In The South Aren’t Letting Anti-Labor Laws Stop Them

September 21, 2023 Mindy Isser, In These Times. , , , ,
Even though strikes are illegal for public sector workers in North Carolina, the difficult and sometimes dangerous work — coupled with low wages and the rising cost of living — led Perry and his co-workers to refuse to get in their trucks to pick up trash on September 6. The action reflects growing labor agitation in the South — a region where union organizing and striking are exceptionally challenging, but workers are nevertheless coming together to improve their working conditions. The day before the action, on the evening of September 5, sanitation and other city workers packed the Durham City Council meeting to present a petition demanding an immediate $5,000 bonus, payment for all work done outside job titles, and hiring all temporary workers as permanent.

Don’t Do The Boss Any Favors

September 20, 2023 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. , , ,
Management everywhere relies on workers “going the extra mile.” We cut corners, we skip breaks, and we look the other way on common violations of the contract, work rules, or even safety. But it’s also possible, when the time is right, to just stop doing the boss these favors. After all, how often does management do workers a favor? As they build momentum for a possible strike, General Motors worker Nick Livick in Kansas City reports that his co-workers are refusing to help management as they normally would. Instead they are waiting for direct orders, and stopping the line when management starts it up early after a break.

Bakehouse Workers In Chicago Fight For Independent Union

September 19, 2023 Jennifer Lenz, The Real News. , , ,
Despite the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the national Public Health Emergency Declaration on May 11, COVID-19 has continued to spread and mutate, leaving millions dead around the world and millions of others chronically ill, permanently disabled, and/or immunocompromised. The pandemic itself, and the botched responses to it by powerful state and market actors (including, and especially, the United States), have inflicted irreversible damage upon our societies, and that damage has been disproportionately felt by marginalized, poor, and working-class people. But the many injustices working people have had to endure during the pandemic, and the many sacrifices we have had to make, have also played a direct role in galvanizing the emerging wave of worker organizing and the renewed labor militancy we are currently witnessing. 

Healthcare Workers In Maryland, Virginia And DC Authorize Strike

September 19, 2023 Danielle J. Brown, Maryland Matters. , , , , , ,
Some 3,800 union healthcare workers in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., are threatening to go on strike at the end of this month if the leadership at Kaiser Permanente and the union cannot agree to a new contract addressing staffing shortages and low pay for workers. According to a Monday statement from OPEIU Local 2, which represents 8,000 workers in the region, about 98% of health care workers from the union voted to authorize a strike to protest “unfair labor practices” if no agreement is reached by Sept. 30. The health care workers represented by OPEIU Local 2 union include optometrists, pharmacists, nurses and certified nursing assistants.

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.”

Auto Workers Strike Plants At All Three Of The Big Three

September 15, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Tick, tock. At midnight the clock ran out, and auto workers massed on picket lines. The first-ever simultaneous strike at the Big 3 automakers—General Motors, Ford, Stellantis—started September 15 with 13,000 workers walking out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. There are 146,000 Auto Workers (UAW) members at the Big 3. The UAW is calling its strategy the “stand-up strike,” a nod to the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937 that helped establish the union. The shot across the bow came two hours shy of midnight via a very short Facebook Live video where UAW President Shawn Fain shared the strike targets.

Nigerian Trade Unions Go On Two-day Strike Amid Economic Crisis

September 13, 2023 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous state and is listed as having the largest economy on the continent with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and other strategic resources. In possession of these material assets along with the 223 million people that inhabit the West African state, the achievements of Nigeria should be limitless. However, the system of neo-colonialism in Africa, where the national wealth of various states largely benefits imperialism, is still maintaining a dominant position over the labor and resources of the people. This system of exploitation constitutes the major impediment to genuine sovereignty, economic independence and social emancipation.

How A Strip Mall Became The Center Of The Modern-Day Labor Movement

September 13, 2023 Diti Kohli, Portside. , , ,
Hadley, Massachusetts - Picture a sprawling suburban strip mall, and Route 9 in this Western Massachusetts town may come to mind. The busy commercial corridor is dotted with curb strips and parking lots, with neatly painted lines and weeds pushing through cracks in the asphalt. National brands fill the low-lying storefronts one after another: Home Depot, Whole Foods, Marshalls, ULTA. But a half-mile stretch of the roadway between Amherst and Northampton is unusual for one reason: It has become a hotbed for labor activism. Starting last year, workers at three big-box stores — Trader Joe’s, Barnes & Noble, and Michaels — formed unions in and around the Mountain Farms mall.
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