Jacobin

By Alex N. Press - Jacobin, March 8, 2024

In Vance, Alabama, nineteen miles east of Tuscaloosa, workers at the Mercedes-Benz US International (MBUSI) plant make the Mercedes GLE, GLE coupé, and GLS model series as well as the all-electric EQS SUV and EQE. They’ve also started building something else: a union. On the heels of the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) victorious strike against the Big Three automakers last fall, the union has gone on the offensive, vowing to organize some 150,000 nonunion autoworkers at thirteen companies across the country.

The union has tried to organize some of these plants before — and failed. The South has proven an almost entirely impenetrable citadel for the entirety of modern US labor history. Yet the UAW is heeding these workers’ calls, directing its focus and $40 million in extra resources to try again, and on a far larger scale.

The UAW has failed before, but now, the context has changed: members’ success at the Big Three has ignited a sense of possibility in their nonunion counterparts, and the union’s new leadership, determined to cast off the corruption of old and trust in the power of the membership and the desire to organize across the entire working class, is encouraging precisely such ambitious thinking. If workers were ever going to pull this one off, now is the time.

The first shop where a majority of workers signed union-authorization cards was Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which employs some 5,500 workers and was the site of previous failed UAW campaigns. On February 27, MBUSI’s workers announced that they were the second plant to reach that milestone, with a majority of the shop’s roughly six thousand employees having signed union cards. (Workers at Hynduai’s plant in Montgomery, Alabama, have also gone public with a UAW campaign, announcing last month that 30 percent of the plant’s four thousand workers have signed union cards.)

By Rune Møller Stahl and Jonas Algers - Jacobin, December 11, 2023

Since the end of October, mechanics at Tesla workshops in Sweden have been striking in an attempt to pressure the firm to agree to collective bargaining with the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union.

Tesla does not manufacture cars in Sweden, so the strike covers only 130 workers. Despite the small number of affected workers, this has become a very prominent strike in the region because it pits two powerful parties against one another.

On one side is Tesla, by far the world’s most valued automaker, currently valued higher than the next nine car companies combined. It boasts 130,000 workers and the top two best-selling EV models. On the other side is the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union, a union with 230,000 members organizing 80 percent of all workers in its sectors. With a large membership that has not taken party in many strikes, the union has amassed a war chest of about $1 billion. It is able to pay the striking workers 130 percent of their salaries.

If either side caves, it will have profound impacts across Sweden. If the unions lose, it might spell the end of the Swedish norm-based labor market system of high unionization rates, sectoral bargaining, and few regulations (there is, for example, no minimum wage in Sweden as most employers simply pay the wages agreed in negotiations with the unions). If Tesla loses, it will be the first union with which the company has been forced to negotiate.

Recognizing these stakes, several other sectors have started sympathy strikes. The transport workers are now refusing to unload Teslas in Swedish ports, the construction workers are not doing repair work on Tesla facilities, and the postal workers are not delivering mail, including license plates to Tesla. The latter strike was branded as “insane” by Elon Musk on Twitter/X.

By Jeff Schuhrke - Jacobin, February 13, 2024

Four months into Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza that has killed over twenty-eight thousand Palestinians, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) — the US labor federation whose member unions represent 12.5 million workers — issued a statement on February 8 urging a negotiated cease-fire to end the violence.

The move came after over two hundred US unions and labor bodies — including national unions like the United Electrical Workers (UE), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), United Auto Workers (UAW), International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), National Nurses United (NNU), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), National Education Association (NEA), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — had already made cease-fire calls of their own. Many unions, especially at the local level, have also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement.

With the backing of the AFL-CIO and the nation’s two largest unions (NEA and SEIU), support for a cease-fire is now the mainstream position of the American labor movement. Given US labor officialdom’s history of providing substantial political and material aid to the state of Israel — along with its frequent partnering with US empire (which I examine in my forthcoming book, Blue Collar Empire) — this is a remarkable development highlighting the power of rank-and-file organizing to push union leaders on critical issues, and signaling the possibility of building a more internationalist labor movement.

Now, the task for rank-and-file members who successfully organized to get their unions to issue cease-fire statements increasingly is to translate that commitment into concrete action to stop what the International Court of Justice considers Israel’s plausible acts of genocide. Across the US labor movement, networks of pro-Palestine workers are continuing to organize to get their unions to cut economic ties with Israel, put pressure on political candidates and elected officials, and interrupt the flow of union-made weapons and research to the Israeli military.

By Alex Press - Jacobin, January 30, 2024

The United Auto Workers (UAW) keeps rolling on.

On Monday, the union announced that a combined ten thousand nonunion workers at two dozen plants across the United States have signed UAW cards since the union began its campaign to organize a sizable portion of the country’s nonunion auto sector, especially thirteen automakers: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen (VW), and Volvo, and electric vehicle (EV) producers Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla. The UAW estimates that the total workforce it’s targeting is around 150,000 people, roughly the same number as are covered by the union’s contracts with the “Big Three” Detroit automakers.

So ten thousand cards means the union has a long way to go. But coming less than ninety days after UAW members ratified the Big Three contracts following their hard-fought stand-up strike, it’s an encouraging milestone. Call it evidence that the union wasn’t bluffing when it said it was channeling resources into an effort to reverse the union’s decades-long decline, along with that of much of the rest of the labor movement.

“Our Stand-Up movement has caught fire among America’s autoworkers, far beyond the Big Three,” UAW president Shawn Fain said in a statement on the announcement. “These workers are standing up for themselves, for their families, and for their communities, and our union will have their back every step of the way.”

By Dana Cloud - Jacobin, October 12, 2023

Under pressure from the striking United Auto Workers, General Motors agreed last week to include EV battery plants in its master agreement with the union. It’s a huge victory for the UAW — and a crucial step in ensuring the transition to EVs benefits workers.

On October 5, faced with a strike at its most profitable assembly plant, General Motors came to the negotiating table with a remarkable offer. It agreed to include electric battery manufacturing in the GM–United Auto Workers (UAW) master agreement.

With this move, having been the most sluggish of the Big Three automakers in trying to meet UAW demands, GM leapt ahead of Ford and Stellantis. After constructing joint ventures in the crucial sector of the industry just coming online, GM blinked and apparently gave up on its dream of a nonunionized, low-wage workforce.

GM is investing $35 billion to produce a million electric vehicles (EV) by the end of 2025. Approximately $20 million is dedicated to research, the remainder being plowed into building or renovating plants that will manufacture and assemble the next generation of EVs. This not only includes expensive changeovers at its assembly plants, but joint-venture battery production. GM CEO Mary Barra explained:

The heart of the strategy is a battery pack design that GM has engineered over the last five years. Its packs, marketed under the name Ultium, are made up of Lego-like battery modules that can be combined in different sizes and used in any GM vehicle, from a compact car to a full-size pickup. Since the modules all use the same parts, GM believes it will reap great economies of scale that will drive down its costs and give it an advantage over other automakers.

Although behind in rolling out the plans, Barra maintains GM will meet its goal. She predicts that by the middle of 2024 GM will produce four hundred thousand EVs. Given that they have made only fifty-six thousand in the first three quarters of 2023, that’s a tall order.

GM is putting all of its vehicles in the EV bucket. So far it is the only one of the Big Three to be so definitive in moving to all-electric production by 2035, and it has been aggressive in developing a research team and partnering with other corporations to gain even further technical expertise. But to meet those goals GM needs flawless execution.

GM has developed a portfolio of electric vehicles across a broader range than its competitors. Starting with a small SUV selling for around $30,000, the line includes a luxury SUV, pickup trucks, and Hummer SUVs that cost $90,000. Autonomous vehicle production is also part of the plan. By building a US-based supply chain, the company will minimize bottlenecks and maximize the tax credits consumers will be able to receive.

In various interviews, Barra has outlined the GM strategy of a no-holds-barred transition. She believes that the combination of superior technology and control over battery production, with a flexible modular platform that allows for a number of different EVs at different price ranges, will result in GM becoming number one.

She envisions that this will win consumer loyalty — but rarely mentions the actual workforce.

By Teddy Ostrow and Barry Eidlin - Jacobin, September 25, 2023

On Friday, September 22, United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain announced that the union would be expanding its “stand-up strike” against the Big Three automakers to thirty-eight parts distribution centers owned by General Motors (GM) or Stellantis. The five thousand workers at those sites are joining the thirteen thousand autoworkers at three assembly plants who walked out when the strike began on September 15.

The UAW’s strategy — striking all of the Big Three at once, but escalating gradually by beginning at a few worksites and calling out more over time to ramp up pressure — is unprecedented in the union’s history. The strike represents a dramatic departure from the union’s recent history in other ways as well, with leadership actively working to involve members in the contract campaign, and President Fain declaring that the union is fighting “for the good of the entire working class.” The leadership’s new approach is due in large part to the election of Fain and other officers associated with Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a union reform caucus that earlier this year swept out the corrupt old guard that had dominated UAW for over seventy years. 

Jacobin contributor Teddy Ostrow recently sat down with Barry Eidlin, associate professor of sociology at McGill University, to talk about the stand-up strike’s precedents in the 1936–37 sit-downs, the long history of efforts to reform the UAW, and the current strike’s implications for the broader labor movement in the United States and Canada.

By Chris Dite and Arthur Rorris - Jacobin, May 11, 2023

Workers in an industrial trading port in Australia are now at the forefront of the fight against war with China*, demanding that jobs and environmental protections take precedence over militarism.

On May Day, thousands of workers from in and around the industrial trading city of Port Kembla in New South Wales (NSW) rallied against the AUKUS deal. AUKUS will see Australia procure nuclear-powered submarines from the United States, and is designed to counter the rise of China as a global power. To date, this was the biggest demonstration against the pact held anywhere in the world.

AUKUS potentially involves Port Kembla hosting a US nuclear submarine base. This would come at the expense of the region’s developing green energy infrastructure. The protesting workers argued that the current drive to war will endanger the city and imperil the many thousands of union jobs that would be guaranteed by a green transformation.

International media outlets in AUKUS partner countries and China have begun to take notice. The workers of Port Kembla will now prove decisive in shaping not only their own futures, but Australia’s role in the biggest conflict of the era.

Jacobin spoke with Arthur Rorris, secretary of the South Coast Labour Council, to find out how this small city came to take the lead in the fight for jobs and peace.

By Ron Kaminkow - Jacobin, April 15, 2023

Congressional progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have defended their railroad strike vote by pointing to rank-and-file support. Here, Railroad Workers United clarifies the group has always unequivocally opposed denying railworkers their right to strike.

On April 11, 2023, Jacobin published a transcript of an interview by editor at large David Sirota with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In the context of a general discussion about differences between the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration, the subject of the vote to break the strike of the railroad workers came up.

In defending her votes — one to approve seven days of sick leave for railworkers and one to support the president’s bill to block the strike — Ocasio-Cortez states that she was acting on the wishes of Railroad Workers United (RWU) and other groups of railroad workers. She states in the interview, “When you look after the vote, folks like RWU were saying, ‘This is what we asked them to do.” Later she says, “Because, for example, with the rail vote, the only partners that I had leading up to that were railworkers. And if that’s what they asked us to do, then that’s what we did.”

But Ocasio-Cortez is clouding the reality of the situation by referring to “the vote,” when in fact there were two separate and distinctive votes. One bill proposed seven days of paid sick time, while the other bill blocked railworkers from striking; these bills were completely independent of one another.

An interview with Ross Grooters - Jacobin, August 18, 2022

With railroad companies refusing to offer employees a favorable contract, 115,000 railworkers could soon launch a nationwide strike. We spoke with a train engineer about the industry’s brutal working conditions — and why a strike could spread like wildfire.

With railroad companies refusing to offer employees a favorable contract, 115,000 railworkers could soon launch a nationwide strike. We spoke with a train engineer about the industry’s brutal working conditions — and why a strike could spread like wildfire.

Rail unions in the United States representing 115,000 workers have been locked in negotiations with rail carriers for over two years. This week, a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), convened by the Biden administration to intervene in the dispute, issued its recommendations for a settlement. The railroads have stated their support for the deal, so the outcome is now in the hands of the twelve unions that represent freight railworkers — as well as Congress, which could intervene to force a deal.

But many railworkers are opposed to the PEB recommendations, which they view as lopsided in favor of railroad companies. They point to their deteriorating working conditions — including inhumane schedules and “lean production” policies that pile on work and threaten their safety and that of the public — and ask why they should accept givebacks when companies don’t even respect their labor. Indeed, in the PEB recommendations, the board reports that “the Carriers maintain that capital investment and risk are the reasons for their profits, not any contributions by labor.”

Some workers are now talking about a national strike — an action that that hasn’t occurred since 1991 and that could have massive economic and political effects during an election year and an uptick in labor activity.

In a conversation with Joe DeManuelle-Hall of Labor Notes, Iowa-based freight engineer Ross Grooters discussed how working conditions on the railroad have gotten worse, why he opposes the deal on the table, and what a national rail strike could look like in the United States.

By Paul Prescod - Jacobin, June 2, 2022

Climate and labor activists are coming together to hammer out ambitious but realistic plans for massively expanding the clean-energy sector in a way that also creates good union jobs. For both paychecks and the planet, it’s the only path forward.

The stalling of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda raises serious concerns for those looking to the federal government for strong action on climate change. Much of the more ambitious climate-related aspects of the legislation have already been gutted — and the fact that it still can’t pass a Congress with a Democratic majority is a worrying sign for the future.

But despite the dysfunction at the federal level, there are encouraging developments occurring at the state level. Increasingly, climate and labor activists are coming together to hammer out ambitious but realistic plans for massively expanding the clean-energy sector in a way that creates family-sustaining union jobs.

These state-based efforts are often facilitated by the Climate Jobs National Resource Center. States like New York, Connecticut and Maine have managed to get real buy-in from the building trades on a vision that defies the false jobs versus environment dichotomy. Recently, the Illinois legislature passed landmark climate legislation that puts the state on a path to reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2050, all with the full support of the Illinois AFL-CIO.

Rhode Island has now joined the party. Earlier this year Climate Jobs Rhode Island, a broad labor-environmental coalition, released a report titled “Building a Just Transition for a Resilient Future: A Climate Jobs Program for Rhode Island.” The report, compiled in partnership with the Worker Institute at Cornell, takes a comprehensive approach to limiting carbon emissions — containing recommendations on retrofits, public transportation, renewable energy, and climate resilience.

The Rhode Island initiative is a good model for activists in other states to consider. In addition to meaningfully addressing climate change, there’s no doubt that this program would result in the creation of tens of thousands union jobs. It points the way forward for both the climate and labor movements, which must join together in order for the working class to have any hope of a sustainable future.