auto workers

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, December 7, 2023

Workers at Volkswagen's only U.S. plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee announced Thursday that they're launching a public organizing committee with the goal of joining the United Auto Workers, which is aiming to expand its membership to include employees at more than a dozen nonunion car companies after winning historic contracts at the Big Three.

In less than a week, more than 1,000 workers at the Volkswagen plant signed union authorization cards, giving the nascent union drive more than 30% support so far at the Chattanooga location.

The UAW narrowly failed to organize the plant in 2014 and 2019. But leaders of the new unionization push expressed confidence that the outcome would be different this time around as the newly emboldened UAW puts special emphasis on the South, where the unionization rate is significantly lower than in the rest of the country.

"People are standing up like never before," said Steve Cochran, a lead organizer of the Chattanooga union drive. "There are a lot of young workers in the plant now and this generation wants respect. They're not okay with mistreatment by management. They see what's happening at Starbucks and Amazon. They know that standing up to join the union is how you win fair treatment, fair pay, and a better life."

Organizers pointed to the $184 billion in profits that Volkswagen Group has brought in over the past decade while workers' wages have stagnated or declined.

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, December 7, 2023

Today workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee, assembly plant announced their third bid to unionize plant-wide with the Auto Workers (UAW).

Riding the momentum of its strike of the Big 3 automakers, the UAW now wants to double its numbers in the auto industry by adding 150,000 workers at companies that have long avoided unionization. Thirteen non-union automakers are on notice: Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, Volkswagen, and electric vehicle producers Rivian, Tesla, and Lucid.

The union says it has been inundated with calls and online sign-ups by workers at these firms. The Volkswagen drive is the first to go public, after 1,000 workers signed union cards.

The UAW’s two previous attempts to organize the full Chattanooga plant fell short narrowly. In 2014, workers lost by 86 votes. In 2019, the union came even closer, losing by just 57 votes with 93 percent turnout. There were 1,700 workers at the plant then. Some 3,800 workers today build the Atlas and Cross Sport SUVs, as well as the electric ID.4.

In 2015 a smaller group of skilled trades workers won their election by a vote of 108 to 44, joining UAW Local 42, which had formed as a minority union following the 2014 loss. But the company refused to negotiate with the smaller unit, delaying in the courts. The UAW quietly jettisoned the effort, filing instead for the full unit in 2019.

After the 2019 defeat, workers kept the flame of organizing alive, meeting regularly and running a petition for the right to use their paid time off outside the company's annual weeklong maintenance shutdown.

By Union Jake, Isabella Escalona, Amy Stager, David Story, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, December 7, 2023

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, December 4, 2023

By Union Jake, David Story, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, December 4, 2023

By Sydney Ghazarian - Labor Network for Sustainability, December 1, 2023

Through bold strategy and collective action, United Auto Workers (UAW) have won historic gains in their 2023 contracts with the Big 3 Auto companies– gains that turned the tide against an unjust transition to electric vehicles and demonstrated that climate progress and economic justice can and must be won in tandem.

UAW’s ratified contracts with the Big 3 include:

• Provisions for expanding unionized EV work. The agreement with General Motors includes a commitment to future battery plants being included in the national agreement with UAW – meaning they will be good union jobs. Other contracts include guarantees for lower barriers to unionization at specific battery plants and commitments to the expansion of EV production already being done by unionized workers at existing plants.
• A 25% wage increase, including an 11% bump in the first year plus restoration of cost-of-living adjustments.
• An end to wage tiers that kept some employees at lower pay than others — a historic and important win for ensuring that EV work is both high-paying and union.
• An end to permanent ‘temporary’ employee status, with temps converting to full employment status after 9 months of work. This win will result in thousands of temporary employees who have spent years working at the company being able to reap the pay and benefits of employment status as soon as the contract is ratified.
• The right to strike over plant closures at all three automakers, which will provide the UAW critical leverage against the Big Three shipping jobs to anti-union states and overseas.
• Reopening the Belvidere Assembly Plant to manufacture EV batteries and serve as a parts depot — one of the only Big Three plants ever reopened after a closure
• The Stellantis agreement includes a moratorium on outsourcing, as well as product and investment commitments, giving workers significant leverage over corporate decision-making.
• Many critical provisions that provide protection for employees during transitions, such as allowing some employees to maintain their seniority from closed or idled plants, transfer rights, and increased moving allowance. 
• Many significant investments in providing a safety net for workers during a transition, such as increased investment in retirement, tuition assistance, and a year of healthcare coverage following indefinite layoffs.
• The contract will expire on April 30, 2028 so that workers can strike on May 1st- International Workers Day. President Fain has called on other unions to align their contract expiration dates, as to maximize their collective power.

The UAW Solidarity Committee– which consists of climate and social movement organizations and is coordinated by the Labor Network for Sustainability– created a brief on the UAW strike outcomes to share with movement partners. You can read more here.

By Union Jake, Steve Early, and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, November 30, 2023

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, November 30, 2023

“The company knows that Toyota workers are watching,” said Auto Workers President Shawn Fain on November 3. “And when the time comes, Toyota workers and all non-union auto workers are going to be ready to stand up.”

That time has come—yesterday the UAW announced its plan, already in motion, to organize the whole auto sector. “Workers across the country, from the West to the Midwest and especially in the South, are reaching out to join our movement and to join the UAW,” said Fain in a new video.

The union says thousands of workers have reached out asking for support in unionizing their auto plants. They’ve scoured the old websites from previous union drives and filled out forms to be put in touch with an organizer.

“To all the auto workers out there working without the benefits of a union: Now it’s your turn,” he said, inviting auto workers to join the organizing push and telling them where they can electronically sign union cards, at UAW.org/join.

Thousands of non-union auto workers are already organizing across the 10 foreign-owned transplants, including Toyota, Hyundai, and Mercedes, as well as in the electric vehicle sector at Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid. Overall, the organizing drive will cover 150,000 workers—roughly the same number of workers covered under the Big 3 contracts—across 13 automakers.

By Nick French - In These Times, November 28, 2023

From its novel strategy to unprecedented contract wins, the United Auto Workers strike made history. The walkout suggests a broader revival of class struggle and workplace democracy.

On Nov. 20, the United Auto Workers announced that members had approved new contracts with General Motors, Stellantis and Ford by 64% following the union’s six-week strike against the Big Three U.S. automakers. 

The contracts at the three automakers represent historic victories. Across all three companies, the UAW achieved a 25% increase in base wages over the four-and-a-half-year contract span — more than workers had won over the previous 20 years — while also eliminating wage tiers and reinstating cost of living increases that had been given up during the Great Recession. 

Importantly, the union also won the right to strike against plant closures. Stellantis and General Motors, meanwhile, have agreed to bring their joint-venture battery plants under the union’s master agreement, ensuring that EV workers receive wages and benefits comparable to workers in traditional auto manufacturing. The UAW also forced Stellantis to agree to reopen the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Belvidere, Illinois, that it had shuttered earlier this year. And at GM and Stellantis, the union additionally won the right to strike if the automakers break promises not to outsource certain aspects of production, or if they violate product and investment commitments at various plants. 

Even more than the significant wage and benefit gains, forcing the reopening of a closed plant and winning the right to strike over investment decisions may be the union’s most important contract victories. They represent workers asserting control over something that management has long regarded as its exclusive prerogative.

Perhaps as important as the contract wins was how they were won. Breaking with decades of the union’s history of concessions and corruption, recently-elected President Shawn Fain and other UAW leaders made ambitious demands and clearly communicated them to members and to the public. And the union has not shied away from the language of class war, with Fain denouncing the greed of the CEOs in biblical language and declaring that autoworkers were fighting ​“for the good of the entire working class.”

The militant strike and its victories suggest the revival of a vision of economic life that has been largely sidelined in the United States in recent decades. That vision sees workers as entitled to a real say over their workplaces, where they spend much of their working lives.

By Steve Hanley - Clean Technica, November 30, 2023

The United Auto Workers just pulled off one of the most successful strikes in history. In a carefully coordinated campaign that targeted the most profitable factories at GM, Ford, and Stellantis simultaneously, the union won historic wage increases coupled with strong gains in job security and benefits.

Emboldened by its success, the UAW now seeks to add workers at Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Subaru, Mazda, Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla. Especially Tesla. In a press statement, the UAW said on November 29, 2023 that autoworkers at more than a dozen non-union automakers have announced simultaneous campaigns across the country to join the UAW. Thousands of non-union autoworkers are signing cards at the new UAW web page, UAW.org/join, and are publicly organizing to join the UAW. The organizing drive will cover nearly 150,000 autoworkers across at least thirteen automakers.