Posts tagged autoworkers
Autoworkers at Lear Seating Plant in Wentzville strike for safer working conditions
July 25, 2024 // The strike put 4,000 people out of work at the Wentzville GM plant on Monday because they had to stop production due to a shortage of parts. Wentzville's GM plant is also part of the UAW, but their members are with local 2250. Hugebeck said 2250 has been very supportive.
Daimler workers have been demanding significant raises, reviving the “record profits mean record contracts” slogan of last year’s strike.
April 28, 2024 // Once part of the same company, Daimler Truck split with Mercedes-Benz in 2021. Still, an outcome seen as favorable to workers in North Carolina could give the UAW a boost not only in the upcoming Mercedes-Benz election, but also union drives underway at Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda, other foreign-owned auto plants in the South. The UAW pledged earlier this year to spend $40 million on organizing efforts through 2026, with a focus on the South.
Liz Shuler Wants AI to Reinvigorate the Labor Movement
April 2, 2024 // Fast forward a few years, and the world has evolved. Shuler is now the president of the AFL-CIO, having moved into the top spot in the summer of 2021, following the death of the organization’s longtime leader, Richard Trumka. Thanks to artificial intelligence, anxiety about technology’s impact on job security has only increased — not only among kitchen workers, but also white-collar professionals who long saw themselves as immune from disruption: writers, lawyers, health care professionals, marketers, financial analysts.
Going on strike: Why some unions have more leverage than others
February 25, 2024 //
Can $40M Secure Unionization From Tesla To Toyota? UAW Pledges Big To Help Non-Union Auto Workers Organize
February 23, 2024 // The United Auto Workers (UAW) has pledged $40 million to support the organizing efforts of non-union autoworkers and battery workers over the next two years.
COMMENTARY: Good news: 2023 won’t mark a union revival
January 3, 2024 // The decline of union membership has been remarkably steady over the last four decades. Since 2000, the year-to-year change in the unionization rate has been positive only six times, and those small gains have quickly been reversed. Moreover, the latest data show that unionization is increasingly concentrated in the government sector, especially local services such as K-12 education and public safety. Only 6% of private sector workers are union members.
Why strikes are working and which industries could be next
November 14, 2023 // A similar story could play out for other workers who endured hardships during the pandemic — and whose industries are still struggling to fill open positions, including teachers, childcare professionals, and food service workers. "From meatpacking plants to grocery stores and coffee shops, workers are realizing more than ever, not just how essential they are, but the strength that comes from standing together to improve their working conditions," Dave Young, International Vice President for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, told Insider.
More workers move to create unions — but that doesn’t always mean more members
October 16, 2023 // Data from the National Labor Relations Board released on Friday shows the number of union petitions filed in the past year — from October 2022 to September of this year — rose 3%. That’s on top of a whopping 53% increase the year before. More union petitions doesn’t immediately mean more union members, however. The tight labor market is making workers more comfortable with circulating petitions to unionize, according to Gordon Lafer at the University of Oregon.
The Future of Electric Vehicles Looms Over Negotiations in the US Autoworkers Strike
October 12, 2023 // So far, neither Ford nor Stellantis has agreed to the change, which would pull employees at all 10 U.S. battery factories proposed by Detroit automakers into national contracts with the UAW, all but assuring they'll be unionized. Fain also wants workers at the plants to make top UAW assembly plant wages, which now are $32 per hour. With the UAW strike now in its fourth week, EVs and their potential impact on job security have become central to union negotiations with the automakers. Contract talks are likely to determine whether those plants — mostly joint ventures with South Korean battery companies — are union, which may have long-lasting consequences as the auto industry transforms itself.
Billionaire investor slams President Biden for his UAW union support
October 5, 2023 // Barry Sternlicht, CEO of investment fund Starwood Capital, sees Biden's support of the UAW as counterproductive to his fight against inflation. "The UAW is on strike, they're asking for 40% wage increases. What's wrong with the Biden administration, why is he so unpopular? It's inflation. It's the economy. People have less in their pockets," Sternlicht told CNBC Friday. "But now he is backing unions who are forcing wages up, which is creating the inflation that he has to kill."