strikes

By Sarah Lazare - In These Times, September 18, 2023

In recent media coverage of the United Auto Workers’ stand-up strike against the Big Three car makers — Stellantis, Ford and General Motors — a false narrative is circulating: that the walkout is in conflict with the urgent need to mitigate climate change. The basic argument is that if wages and benefits were to improve, this would make the transition to electric vehicle manufacturing unprofitable, and would therefore imperil a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s environmental policy. 

“Union demands would force Ford to scrap its investments in electric vehicles, Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday,” reporter Jack Ewing wrote for the New York Times on September 16. Ewing goes on to quote Farley saying, ​“We want to actually have a conversation about a sustainable future, not one that forces us to choose between going out of business and rewarding our workers.”

In an article that ran on September 13, the day before the strike began, New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber put it similarly: ​“The companies say that even if they could raise wages for battery workers to the rate set under their national U.A.W. contract, doing so could make them uncompetitive with nonunion rivals, like Tesla.”

These reports echo the talking points of the same companies that have had a direct hand in slowing the transition to electric vehicles. All of the Big Three automakers are members of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group, that lobbied against a proposed Biden administration rule to require that two out of three new passenger cars sold in the United States are electric vehicles by 2032. 

These companies have also played a key role in fueling climate change. Scientists at Ford and General Motors knew about the impacts of global warming as early as the 1960s, yet the companies intensified their fossil-fuel heavy business model, turning to the manufacturing of trucks and SUVs over the ensuing decades while donating ​“hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming,” as revealed in a 2020 investigation by E&E News. Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler (now owned by Stellantis) are among ​“the strongest opponents of regulations to help countries meet the 1.5C warming limit in the Paris agreement,” according to an investigation by The Guardian published in 2019.

Yet this vital context is largely being left out of ongoing coverage and, instead, companies’ supposed concerns about the environment are being reported at face value.

By staff - DNYUZ, September 16, 2023

A battle between Detroit carmakers and the United Auto Workers union, which escalated on Friday with targeted strikes in three locations, is unfolding amid a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union.

The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions.

The established carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — are trying to defend their profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and foreign automakers. Some executives and analysts have characterized what is happening in the industry as the biggest technological transformation since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line started up at the beginning of the 20th century.

Nearly 13,000 U.A.W. workers walked off the job at three plants in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri on Friday after talks between the unions and the companies in three separate negotiations failed to result in agreements before a Thursday deadline. Pay is one of the biggest sticking points: The union is demanding a 40 percent pay increase over four years but the automakers have offered roughly half as much.

But the talks are about more than pay. Workers are trying to defend jobs as manufacturing shifts from internal combustion engines to batteries. Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles. A favorable outcome for the U.A.W. would also give the union a strong calling card if, as some expect, it then tries to organize employees at Tesla and other nonunion carmakers like Hyundai, which is planning to manufacture electric vehicles at a massive new factory in Georgia.

By Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter - Labor Notes, September 15, 2023

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: Stellantis’s Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio; GM’s Wentzville Assembly Center, near St. Louis; and the final assembly and paint departments at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant, west of Detroit. These plants make highly profitable full-sized SUVS and trucks, including the Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Colorado, and Ford Bronco.

Fain laid out the union’s escalation strategy on Wednesday. The union will target a few plants at first, letting the Big 3 know the union is willing to inflict financial pain.

The idea is to keep the companies guessing. If they don’t move on the union’s demands, more pain will be applied—but the companies won’t be able to predict where.

“An all-out strike is still a possibility,” Fain said.

By Julia Conley - Common Dreams, September 13, 2023

On the eve of the expiration of the United Auto Workers union's contract and a potential strike Wednesday, climate action groups were among more than 100 civil society organizations on Wednesday calling on the "Big Three" automakers to ensure that a new contract protects workers as the U.S. transitions toward making electric vehicles.

Groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and Earthjustice were among those expressing solidarity with nearly 150,000 union autoworkers who are demanding that employees of electric vehicle battery plants being developed by Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors are paid fairly—reflecting the record profits the automakers have reported in recent years.

"Within the next few years—the span of this next contract—lies humanity's last chance to navigate a transition away from fossil fuels, including away from combustion engines," wrote the groups in an open letter. "With that shift comes an opportunity for workers in the United States to benefit from a revival of new manufacturing, including electric vehicles (EVs) and collective transportation like buses and trains, as a part of the renewable energy revolution."

"This transition must center workers and communities, especially those who have powered our economy through the fossil fuel era, and be a vehicle for economic and racial justice," they added. "We are putting you on notice: Corporate greed and shareholder profits must never again be put before safe, good-paying union jobs, clean air and water, and a livable future."

By Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Lucy Dean Stockton - The Lever, September 12, 2023

Roughly 150,000 auto workers are preparing to launch what may be the biggest strike in decades this Thursday over their employers’ refusal to provide adequate pay and job security. Meanwhile, in the past twelve months, the Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis — have authorized $5 billion in stock buybacks, effectively giving billions of dollars to shareholders that could have gone to auto workers.

On top of the stock buybacks, the Big Three have reported $21 billion in profits in just the first six months of 2023. Despite the enormous gains, the companies have cried poverty in response to union demands for wage increases to make up for decades of pay stagnation.

In a statement released last month, General Motors (GM) claimed that the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) demands “would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team.”

As part of its efforts to force the auto companies to spend more on their workers, the UAW has taken aim at the corporations’ stock buyback approach, in which companies repurchase their shares to drive up their short-term value. In their negotiations over a new contract, which expires on Thursday, the union proposed automatic payments to workers when the companies authorize buybacks or expand dividends. 

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, September 12, 2023

Two days before their contract expires at midnight Thursday, the Auto Workers (UAW) are poised to strike the Big 3 automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—to recoup concessions made over the past two decades, end tiers, boost wages, and fight for a shorter workweek and other quality-of-life demands.

The auto companies are preparing for a strike, given the UAW’s new fighting spirit, on display in rallies and on the shop floor.

UAW President Shawn Fain was elected in March on a slate backed by the reform movement Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), on a platform of “no corruption, no concessions, no tiers,” ending nearly 80 years of one-party rule in the union.

The reform slate won every seat it contested and came into office with a mandate to take the union in a more militant direction, similar to the leadership shakeup in the Teamsters in 2021.

By Marcelina Pedraza, Torice Sawyer, Nick Livick, and Max Alvarez - Working People, September 11, 2023

By Derek Seidman - Truthout, September 10, 2023

We may be days away from the biggest U.S. auto worker strike in years. The contracts between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the “Big Three” automakers (Ford, General Motors (GM) and Stellantis) expire on September 14. The agreements cover nearly 150,000 workers at the three corporations. So far, news reports indicate that the union and the auto giants remain far apart in negotiations. A whopping 97 percent of UAW members have authorized a strike.

The demands of autoworkers are clear. They include eliminating wage and benefit tiers, obtaining double-digit wage increases, the restoration of cost of living adjustments, defined benefit pensions for all workers, reestablishing retiree medical benefits, the right to strike over plant closures, new protections for workers if a plant shuts down, and more. Looming over the negotiations is the accelerating transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Auto workers are in a historic fight to ensure that EV production comes with high-quality union jobs.

The auto companies are not hurting financially. UAW President Shawn Fain has stressed the “record profits” of the Big Three, claiming the companies took in $21 billion in profits during the first half of 2023 alone and an astounding $250 billion over the past decade. Their CEOs have seen their “pay spike 40% on average over the last four years,” says Fain.

The auto workers’ fight is not theirs alone. In organizing to win substantial gains for their members against companies that are awash in billions in profit, victory for the UAW can help raise the wage floor for other workers and set an inspiring example of what militant trade unionism can achieve. It can help turn the tide on the trend where workers create ever-rising profits for corporations, but never seem to receive their just share.

By Teddy Ostrow and Ruby Walsh - In These Times, September 7, 2023

The hot labor summer isn’t over yet. 

In a week’s time, the United Auto Workers may launch a strike of 150,000 of its members if the Big Three automakers – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) – fail to meet the workers’ demands in new contracts by September 14. 

The Big Three made a quarter trillion dollars over the past decade. And with non-union electric vehicle and battery manufacturing on the rise in the United States, this may be a make or break moment for the union. So, with a more militant leadership at its helm, the UAW is demanding more than they have in a long time: serious wage increases; the elimination of tiers; the return of pensions, COLA, and retiree healthcare; and a 32-hour workweek.

For this episode, we unpack the auto workers’ demands, their stakes for the auto industry and the broader working class, and the burgeoning EV transition. We also explore how during this round of negotiations, the union is doing something it hasn’t done in a very long time. Inspired by the Teamsters, the UAW is conducting a contract campaign, with rallies, practice pickets, and all.

To discuss all this and more, we spoke with two UAW activists in Metro Detroit. Luigi Gjokaj was an assembly worker at Stellantis since 2010 and is the newly elected vice president of UAW Local 51. Jessie Kelly is a skilled moldmaker at General Motors and alternate committeeperson at UAW Local 160.

You’ll also hear from auto workers in Metro Detroit and Chicago, who attended rallies and practice pickets to drum up unity before the strike deadline.

By Ross Grooters, Gabe Christianson, and Andrew Weir - Railroad Workers United, September 6, 2023

Whereas, the US labor movement, including the railroad unions, face many obstacles in the fight to reverse the long decline of low membership; and

Whereas, autoworkers represented by the UAW are a significant workforce in the country and are battling against the “Big Three” automakers; and;

Whereas, solidarity action by other workers and unions along the supply chain can be the decisive factor in any battle between workers and employers; and

Whereas, a victory for UAW workers could embolden all workers to go on the offensive to win better contracts; and likewise, a victory for the new leadership of the UAW could embolden all union members looking to reform and democratize their own unions; and

Whereas, RWU recognizes the power that railroad workers have to assist UAW workers, as automobiles manufactured at UAW plants are loaded onto “autorack” railcars and transported by train daily throughout the U.S.; and

Whereas, the fight for electrification of the auto industry to happen through good, union jobs, has parallels to the fight for electrification of the North American railroads; and

Whereas, the fight to build links with auto workers in Mexico and Canada to fight back against the outsourcing of jobs to non-union workforces has parallels with the fight for railroad workers to get organized across North America as the railroad systems of the US, Mexico, and Canada become increasingly integrated;

Therefore, Be it Resolved that RWU offers full solidarity in support of UAW workers in their fight for strong contracts; and

Be it Further Resolved that RWU suggests that UAW workers organize picket lines at the rail entrance of any auto facilities that receive rail service, and that RWU calls on railroad workers and our unions to refuse to cross any UAW picket lines, which is a basic principle of labor movement solidarity; and

Be it Finally Resolved that RWU urges all of rail labor to likewise stand in solidarity with our UAW fellow workers.

Adopted by the RWU Steering Committee, September 6, 2023