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United Auto Workers (UAW)

UAW Admits Digital Heavy, Organizing Committee Light Approach Failed Them

May 27, 2024 Mike Elk, Payday Report. , , , , , ,
Rather than using traditional organizing committee structures, the UAW relied heavily on digital meetings, a light staff approach from the international union, and getting workers to sign union cards via QR codes. Given the positive media coverage of the UAW in the “Stand Up Strike,” many UAW leaders were confident they could win using this approach. After filing with 70%, the UAW believed they would maintain their margin and win at similar margins to the 73% victory of UAW workers in Chattanooga. However, the UAW lost 44%-56% in Alabama amid charges that the company used backroom manipulation tactics against workers.

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.

Casino Workers Are Fighting For The Air They Breathe

May 17, 2024 Kim Kelly, In These Times. , , , , ,
Rome burned to the ground almost 2,000 years ago, but Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City, N.J.,is still smoking. The sprawling casino, hotel and entertainment complex is a holdover from the city’s mid-century glory days, where a visitor can still slurp down a shrimp cocktail and gamble to their heart’s content — and in some parts of the casino, light up a cigarette or a stogie and chain smoke the night away. When New Jersey passed its Smoke-Free Air Act in 2006, casinos were a notable exemption. Now, Atlantic City’s casino workers, with help from the United Auto Workers, are fighting to close the loophole and clean up the air in their workplaces.

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.

We Need To Strike For Palestine: Why UAW 4811 Matters

May 1, 2024 Mary Jirmanus Saba, Mondoweiss. , , , ,
Workers across the U.S. labor movement, including the United Auto Workers (UAW), are mobilizing for Palestine. From the strong resolutions passed at Ford UAW Local 551 (representing workers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant), to UAW 4811 at UC Berkeley’s resolution to commit union resources to make Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) a bargaining demand, to the historic vote from the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) last November to investigate the union’s ties to Israel’s apartheid regime, workers in the U.S. are advancing the demands of their Palestinian allies.

Southern Autoworkers’ Union Drives Can Reverse Decades Of Job Decline

May 1, 2024 Marc Bayard and Dev Wakeley, Inequality.org. , , , , , ,
The United Auto Workers recently scored the largest union victory in decades in the South. Their success at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant could be a turning point for labor in a region long known for governmental hostility to unions. The next test will be a UAW election scheduled for the week of May 13 at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Alabama, a state that has attracted so much auto investment it has earned the nickname “the Detroit of the South.” If the roughly 5,000 Mercedes workers vote to unionize, the ripple effects could empower workers nationwide.

May Day 2028 Could Transform The Labor Movement And The World

May 1, 2024 Shawn Fain, In These Times. , , , , , ,
Members of the United Auto Workers courageously fought corporate greed at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis last fall during the historic six-week Stand-Up Strike. Because of their determination and commitment, we won record contracts with the Big Three automakers. After decades of falling behind, UAW autoworkers are finally moving forward again. We made a lot of ambitious demands at the bargaining table. One in particular may not have gotten the same attention as the reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments or the reopening of the Stellantis assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill. — but it could also prove transformational: We aligned our contracts to expire at midnight on April 30, 2028.

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."

HAW-UAW Large Unit Votes To Unionize, 93% In Favor

April 9, 2024 Aran Sonnad-Joshi and Sheerea X. Yu , Portside. , , , ,
Non-tenure-track faculty at Harvard voted 1,094-81 to unionize under Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers, the group announced on Friday. Around 40 percent of the 3,100 eligible voters — which includes academic workers from postdocs to lecturers from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Divinity School — showed up to vote at one of three locations at the Harvard Science Center, the Science and Engineering Complex, and Tosteson Medical Education Center at the Longwood campus.

Please Launch Workers United Against Mass Layoffs

April 4, 2024 Les Leopold, Scheer Post. , , , , ,
It’s time for a new organization to protect working people from the plague of mass layoffs. Let’s call it, for now, Workers United Against Mass Layoffs. Given the United Autoworkers’ growing prestige, this seems like the ideal moment for the union to lead the fight against needless mass layoffs everywhere and for everyone. The United Autoworkers know all about mass layoffs.  Currently,  GM is laying off 1,314 workers across two plants in Michigan, and another 322 UAW members are losing their jobs at Missouri Central School Bus. They are not alone. 

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.

Why The UAW Is Standing Up With Mexican Auto Workers

March 29, 2024 Brandon Mancilla, Labor Notes. , , , ,
The United Auto Workers announced February 23 that it will provide material support to Mexican auto workers organizing in the independent union movement. As a member of the UAW Executive Board, I’m proud that our union understands how the futures of auto workers in the United States and Mexico are tied together. Our Mexico solidarity project is about empowering our membership to win strong contracts and protecting our jobs in the United States—and it’s also about ensuring justice for workers across the border.

Toyota Workers At Critical Engine Plant Launch UAW Union Drive

March 7, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Auto workers at a Toyota engine plant in Troy, Missouri, have signed up 30 percent of their 1,000 co-workers to join the United Auto Workers (UAW)—a first at Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, on the heels of the union’s announcements of organizing campaigns at Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Mercedes-Benz. Workers at the plant just outside St. Louis build 2.6 million cylinder heads per year. Should they stop building them, it would cut off supplies for all of the company’s engine plants in North America. Toyota is still working to build up its supply of chips and other inventory, following pandemic lockdowns and global supply-chain snarls.
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