.png)
But outlets like the Wall Street Journal (10/30/23), New York Times (11/9/23) and Bloomberg (11/9/23), still struggling to report on labor from a workers’ perspective (see FAIR.org, 9/26/23), instead focused on the economy at large or predictive reporting. Throughout the strike, media seemed interested in any story—how the union will wreck the economy, Musk’s potential countermoves, why the EV transition is doomed—that didn’t focus on bread-and-butter gains for union members.
.png)
As voting wrapped up on Friday, United Auto Workers members at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis were all on track to approve contracts finalized during a six-week UAW strike demanding improved pay, benefits, and working conditions from the "Big Three."
The union's online trackers had the ratification vote results as 68.2% to 31.8% at Ford, 54.7% to 45.3% at GM, and 69.6% to 30.4% at Stellantis as of press time. The UAW and companies have not yet commented on the results.
The UAW launched its "Stand Up Strike" in mid-September, and increased walkouts at various U.S. locations throughout the talks. Rutgers University labor studies professor Rebecca Givan toldThe New York Times that the strategy "really upended a lot of conventional wisdom" in the labor movement and helped reverse some concessions the union had previously accepted, showing that "if workers build enough power, they can win things back."
The pending agreements, which were reached over a few days at the end of last month, don't deliver on all worker demands but celebrated provisions include 25% wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments through April 30, 2028.
As Bloombergreported:
Workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant voted 78% in favor of ratifying the agreement Friday, putting Ford over the top, according to UAW Local 600 President Nick Kottalis.
"It's a good contract, you just can't get around that," Kottalis said. "You look at the investment we got in 2019 compared to now, it's not rocket science. It's just better."
The contracts' expiration date sets up a possible mass action around International Workers' Day on May 1, 2028. The UAW said last month that "we invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles."
Also framing the Big Three battle as part of a bigger effort, UAW president Shawn Fain declared last month that "if we are going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it's important that we not only strike, but that we strike together."
Fain on Tuesday testified at U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) hearing about how unions raise up working families and take on corporate greed. The UAW leader stressed the "essential role" of federal lawmakers, calling on them to not only support "our fights and other fights like ours," but also "finish the job for economic and social justice for the entire working class."
Already, the historic Big Three deals are leading to "UAW bumps" at other automakers including Honda, Hyundai, Subaru, and Toyota. The union is also aiming to help organize workers at Telsa, the electric vehicle company of billionaire Elon Musk.
Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, became the first sitting president to join striking workers on a picket line in late September, when he rallied with UAW members outside a GM plant in Belleville, Michigan.
The Biden campaign's Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday that "Joe Biden isn't just saying that he'll always have workers' backs—he's proving it. After President Biden made history by standing with striking autoworkers, unions have notched historic wins and even nonunionized auto companies are taking note, increasing workers' wages.
"This is what happens when you have a president who cares about working people," added Moussa. "Workers win."
Originally published on November 17th, 2023, in Common Dreams
'This Is Our Defining Moment': UAW Launches Historic Strikes Against Big Three Automakers, Common Dreams
In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike, Peoples Dispatch
Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news stories, and my brief bio.
On social media, visit me on
Facebook: The Brooks Blackboard
Twitter: @_CharlesBrooks
Marick Masters, Wayne State University
.png)
The United Auto Workers union agreed on a tentative new contract with General Motors on Oct. 30, 2023, days after landing similar deals with Ford Motor Co. on Oct. 25 and Stellantis, the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America, on Oct. 28. The pending agreements have halted the industry’s longest strike in 25 years. It began on Sept. 15, when the UAW’s prior contracts with all three automakers expired, and lasted more than six weeks. After gradually ramping up, the strike eventually included about 46,000 workers – roughly one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the three companies.
Ford released a statement in which it said it was “pleased” to have reached a deal and “focused on restarting Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.” Stellantis, likewise, looks forward to “resuming operations,” as one of its executives said in a statement. General Motors initially made no public statements.
The Conversation asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University scholar of labor and business issues, to explain what’s in these contracts and their significance.
According to several media reports and the union’s own announcements, Ford’s tentative labor agreement includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4½ years, as well as the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance the UAW lost in 2009.
In addition, the tentative agreements also will convert many temporary workers to full-time status, higher pay for temps, the right to go on strike over plant closures and significant increases in contributions to retirement plans.
By the end of the period covered by the Ford, GM and Stellantis contracts, the top worker wage at assembly plants will be more than US$40 an hour. All three contracts will expire on April 30, 2028.
The Stellantis deal, according to UAW officials, is similar to the one reached with Ford in other ways – as, reportedly, is the one that the UAW agreed upon with GM.
The Stellantis agreement also has provisions regarding specific North American plants, including the plant Stellantis had idled earlier in 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois, the UAW said. Stellantis has promised to add 5,000 new jobs at Belvidere and other factories over the next four years, in stark contrast to its previous intention to cut that many jobs during the same period, UAW President Shawn Fain said on Oct. 28.
The Ford contract, likewise, calls for more than $8 billion in investments in factories and other facilities, according to the UAW.
After having made major economic concessions to help the companies survive the Great Recession, stiff international competition and the 2009 bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler – before the latter became a division of Stellantis – UAW members believed they deserved what they’re calling a “record contract” for having contributed to “record profits.”
“The days of low-wage, unstable jobs at the Big Three are coming to an end,” Fain said on Oct. 28. “The days of the Big Three walking away from the American working class, destroying our communities, are coming to an end.”
To forge its militant strategy, the union tore a page from the playbook of labor leader Walter Reuther, who led the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970. Reuther believed that workers deserved a fair share of corporate abundance – just like shareholders and customers.
The UAW released the full details of the Ford contract to all of its members who are Ford workers on Oct. 29, after its leaders had signed off on it. Rank-and-file members now have to ratify the deal for it to go into effect.
The same process will happen with Stellantis on Nov. 2. The separate deal the UAW negotiated with GM will also require ratification.
In the meantime, the autoworkers who went on strike will be returning to their jobs.
.png)
To put these numbers into perspective, Ford generated slightly more than $130 billion in revenue in the first three quarters of 2023, and almost $5 billion in profits.
Stellantis has not yet made public what it believes the strike has cost the company.
General Motors has said that the strike is costing the company more than $800 million.
This article was updated on Oct. 30, after GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract.
Originally published on October 30th, 2023, in The Conversation.
'This Is Our Defining Moment': UAW Launches Historic Strikes Against Big Three Automakers, Common Dreams
In two days, 144,000 US autoworkers workers are set to strike, Peoples Dispatch
Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news stories, and my brief bio.
On social media, visit me on
Facebook: The Brooks Blackboard
Twitter: @_CharlesBrooks
Speaking outside of Ford's Dearborn, Michigan headquarters, UAW president Shawn Fain said that "we came here today to get another offer from Ford."
"Unfortunately, this offer was the exact same offer they gave us two weeks ago," said Fain. "They're not taking us serious. We've been very patient working with the company on this. At the end of the day, they have not met expectations, they're not even coming to the table on it. So at this point, we had to take action."
The walkout at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville brings the total number of UAW members on strike at the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers to roughly 33,000. The companies have laid off thousands of non-striking workers since the UAW's walkouts began last month.
Citing an unnamed source inside Ford's Kentucky facility, the Detroit Free Pressreported that "with little warning, thousands of workers left their jobs at 6:30 pm, just minutes after union officials walked through the plant, shut off the line, and told workers to walk out peacefully."
"We're not gonna wait around forever," Fain wrote in a social media post late Wednesday. "If Ford can't get that after four weeks on strike, these 8,700 workers shutting down their biggest plant will help them understand it."
Ford, which has seen its profits surge this year, expressed outrage over the strike expansion, noting in a statement that the Kentucky Truck Plant is one of the biggest auto factories in the world.
"The vehicles produced at the Louisville-based factory—the F-Series Super Duty, the Ford Expedition, and the Lincoln Navigator—generate $25 billion a year in revenue," the company said.
Chris Brooks, a UAW organizer, responded that "Ford just admitted they're losing $48,000 a minute in revenue while the Kentucky Truck Plant is on strike."
"That is how much value autoworkers at this one plant produce—and now they're showing Ford how expensive it is to not come to the table and pony up," Brooks wrote on social media.
Ford has offered UAW members a 23% wage increase over the course of a four-year contract as well as cost-of-living adjustments. The UAW has demanded a 36% wage hike and significant improvements to retirement, healthcare, and other benefits.
Reutersreported Wednesday that Ford and UAW negotiators "had been working to resolve differences on retirement security and union representation at the company's future battery plants earlier in the day."
Last week, the UAW announced that General Motors has agreed to include electric battery plant workers in its labor agreement, which Fain described as a "transformative win."
On Wednesday, according to Reuters, Fain and other UAW officials "called a meeting with Ford... and demanded a new offer, which Ford did not have."
"You just lost Kentucky Truck," Fain reportedly said in response. "This is all you have for us? Our members' lives and my handshake are worth more than this."
In his remarks outside Ford's headquarters on Wednesday, Fain said the company has only itself to blame for the strike escalation.
"They made it happen. This is on them, they have to own it," said Fain. "If the companies aren't going to come to the table and take care of the membership's needs, then we will react."
Originally published on October 12th, 2023, in Common Dreams
Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news stories, and my brief bio.
On social media, visit me on
Facebook: The Brooks Blackboard
Twitter: @_CharlesBrooks
.png)
The initial wave of strikes hit select Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis facilities, with the union deploying a tactic it has described as a " stand-up strike."
UAW members at General Motors' Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Ford's Michigan Assembly, and Stellantis' Toledo Assembly in Ohio were the first to walk off the job on Friday, and additional locals will be called on to strike in the coming days as negotiations continue.
Those who remain on the job will be working under an expired collective bargaining agreement, though they still have status quo protections.
.png)
The labor actions mark the first time the UAW has ever gone on strike against all three major automakers simultaneously.
"We've been working hard, trying to reach a deal for economic and social justice for our members," UAW president Shawn Fain said in a speech late Thursday, just ahead of the midnight strike deadline. "We have been firm. We are committed to winning an agreement with the Big Three that reflects the incredible sacrifice and contributions UAW members have made to these companies."
"The money is there, the cause is righteous, the world is watching, and the UAW is ready to stand up," Fain added. "This is our defining moment."
The companies' latest publicized offers to the UAW included raises of up to 20% over the course of a four-year contract, but the proposals thus far have fallen well short of the union's demands on wages, cost-of-living adjustments, retiree benefits, and other key issues.
Ford CEO Jim Farley, who brought in nearly $21 million in total compensation last year, told CNN that the UAW's push for a near-40% wage increase would "put us out of business," a claim that Fain dismissed as a "joke."
"The cost of labor for a vehicle is 5% of the vehicle," Fain said from the picket line outside Ford's Michigan Assembly plant. "They could double our wages and not raise the prices of vehicles, and they would still make billions of dollars. It's a lie like everything else that comes out of their mouths."
Between 2013 and 2022, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis released this week, the Big Three automakers saw roughly $250 billion in total profits—an increase of 92%—and the companies' CEOs received a 40% pay increase. The automakers also rewarded shareholders with $66 billion in dividend payouts and stock buybacks.
U.S. autoworkers' wages, meanwhile, have declined by over 19% since the car industry's 2008 crisis, during which workers gave up cost-of-living adjustments and other benefits to help keep the major automakers afloat.
"As a single parent, I'm working paycheck to paycheck," Adelisa LeBron, a striking Ford worker, toldThe Washington Post. "I love the way Shawn is fighting for us, how he's not going to settle."
In his address late Thursday, Fain urged locals that are not currently on strike to "keep organizing" to "show the companies you are ready to join the stand-up strike at a moment's notice."
"This strategy will keep the companies guessing," he said. "It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining. And if we need to go all out, we will. Everything is on the table."
On Friday evening, the UAW is planning to hold what Fain dubbed a "mass rally" outside of a Ford building in downtown Detroit, where U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is expected to appear.
"We must show the world that our fight is a righteous fight," said Fain.
This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org on September 15th, 2023.
The master contract for 144,000 unionized workers expires on September 14. Workers are ready to strike the three largest automakers in the nation
Workers have been preparing for months for this moment, using the UPS Teamsters’ historic contract win as inspiration. The United Auto Workers, which represents the 144,000 workers employed at the “Big Three” automakers, has organized grassroots actions such as practice pickets. This year’s contract campaign is the first mobilization of the rank-and-file union members for contract negotiations in the union’s history.
.png)
“That’s not COLA. That’s not even Diet COLA. That’s Coke Zero,” said Fain on September 8.
The companies have only put forward new counter proposals this past weekend, writes Luiz Feliz Leon in Labor Notes, although even these fall far short of what workers want. “It’s unfortunate the companies have waited until the last moments to get focused on the needs of 150,000 autoworkers, our families, and our communities,” said Fain on Monday.
In 2022, in the first direct election in UAW for top officers, union members elected current President Shawn Fain, who has been trailblazing a path for radical change within the union. Fain is determined to abandon the model of concessions to the Big Three that UAW leadership has pursued for decades, and win back the victories of the socialist-influenced UAW of the 1930s and 40s. The UAW’s demands such as a 32-hour workweek, raises tied to inflation, the elimination of tiers which divide workers, and the ending of plant closures, reflect the goals of a new iteration of leadership.
Autoworkers are ready to strike. UAW has USD 825 million in its strike fund to makesure that workers can make do without pay. Last month, 97% of workers at the Big Three voted to authorize a strike. In two days, this could very well become a reality—the first time autoworkers at all of the “Big Three” strike at once.
If they manage to win their demands before September 14 (President Fain has made it clear that backing down from demands is not an option), UAW workers will raise standards for the entire US working class, currently in the depths of economic despair.
If a potential strike is not averted, UAW workers will embark on a battle not only for their set of very radical demands but against some of the most powerful elements of capitalism itself. In a recent report at Truthout, Derek Seidman labeled the Big Three the “three-headed behemoth of big capital.” Seidman’s report reveals the links between the leadership of the largest automakers in the country to some of the most notorious union busting corporations in the country, including Amazon and Walmart, as well as to the tools and masterminds of US imperialism such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the top weapons producers (General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin) that bloat the US military budget.
As Seidman writes, “GM CEO Mary Barra herself served on the board of General Dynamics, the fifth-biggest US defense company, from 2011 to 2017, during which she was compensated in the millions. GM Director Thomas Schoewe currently serves as a director of Northrop Grumman, the third-biggest US defense company. GM Director Wesley G. Bush is the former head of Northrop Grumman, serving as CEO until 2018 and chairman until 2019. Another GM director, Linda R. Good, is the retired executive vice president of Information Systems and Global Solutions at Lockheed Martin, the top US defense company.”
In 2022, General Motors CEO Mary Barra made USD 29 million in total compensation, Ford CEO Jim Farley made over USD 55 million from 2020 to 2022, and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made nearly USD 23.5 million in 2022.
“Our wages have increased by less than 12% since 2007. Adjusted for inflation, Big 3 workers are earning $9/hour LESS than we were 15 years ago,” writes the UAW reform organization, Unite All Workers for Democracy, in a contract campaign leaflet. “Are you ready to take on the companies and win what we deserve?”
This article originally appeared at PeoplesDispatch.org on September 12th, 2023.
