Posts tagged BMW
Michigan’s auto jobs drive South from 8 Mile to I-65
July 23, 2025 // The biggest winner was North Carolina, which added 1 million+ jobs in other industries over the period. But the Tarheel State lost 12% of its auto jobs in that time. Even auto winner Alabama added five times more jobs in other sectors than it did in auto jobs. The number of overall jobs in North Carolina from 2000 to 2023 increased by more than 27%, while the number of jobs in Tennessee grew by 23.7%. The overall national average of jobs growth during those years was 18.3%.
Volkswagen union vote in Tennessee to test UAW’s power after victories in Detroit
April 18, 2024 // More than 4,000 VW workers are eligible to vote, beginning Wednesday and ending at 8 p.m. EDT on Friday. The organizing vote, which is being overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, will need a simple majority to succeed. Fain and others see this week's vote as the union's best shot at organizing the VW plant following the record contracts and strikes at the Detroit automakers, which launched Fain to international prominence as the face of the union last year.
This Union Is Plotting To Take Over The Auto Industry. Can It Be Done?
March 26, 2024 // “It’s no coincidence that UAW is finally gaining ground in Tennessee: Biden has absolutely tilted the playing field at the NLRB in favor of unionization,” David Osborne, fellow at the Institute for the American Worker, told the DCNF. “Unfortunately, many of these changes — like the NLRB’s ruling in Cemex that a union election isn’t even necessary — favor union officials at the expense of rank-and-file workers. In announcing its plans to expand unionization efforts, UAW is obviously embracing this new legal landscape.”
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: States should protect workers from Democrats’ latest assault on their rights
January 19, 2024 // Ending the secret ballot is just one of the ways these Senate Democrats are trying to deprive workers of their rights. They ultimately want automakers to sign a so-called neutrality agreement. As I’ve documented, such agreements typically do three things. The first is to gut the secret ballot in favor of card check. Second, they give unions the personal information of every worker at a company — another violation of privacy and another invitation to intimidation. Finally, neutrality agreements put a gag order on companies, prohibiting them from talking to their workers about unionization. Yet that violates workers’ right to the full information they need to make the best choice. And that’s exactly why unions want to shut companies up — because it makes workers easier to control.
Opinion: UAW settlement will increase cost of new vehicle
January 12, 2024 // These additional labor costs will add about $900 to the price of a new vehicle. Manufacturing output per hour in the U.S. has grown by just .02% since 2009. As a bargaining strategy it makes sense for John Fein, president of the UAW, to argue that auto manufacturers are enjoying significant profits, and that some auto executives are paid giant salaries. However, what is not as well publicized is that productivity in the domestic automobile industry, as measured by output per hour, has declined by 32% since 2012. Some of this precipitous drop in productivity can be blamed on the pandemic, but such drastic productivity decreases were not as apparent in Asia. Simply put, American auto manufacturers and workers are not very efficient.
UAW launches campaign to unionize Toyota, Tesla and other automakers
November 30, 2023 // United Auto Workers union said its next target is to unionize factory workers at Lucid, Rivian, Tesla and 10 foreign automakers, a move that comes after it garnered new employment contracts from Detroit's Big Three automakers. BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Mazda, Mercedes, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo are based overseas but all have manufacturing operations in the U.S. Because these companies have brought in billions of dollars in profit over the past decade, their hourly factory workers deserve to make more money, UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video Wednesday.
Toyota Gives 9% Pay Bump to Most U.S. Auto-Factory Workers, Following UAW Gains in Detroit
November 2, 2023 // The UAW recently concluded a more-than-six-week strike at the Detroit automakers, after reaching proposed contracts at all three car companies for roughly 146,000 U.S. auto workers. Those agreements include a 25% general wage increase over four years, which the UAW says is more than members have received in the past 22 years combined. When cost-of-living adjustments are factored in, the increase would boost the top pay for Detroit Three production workers to about $42 an hour at the end of the contract’s term in 2028. UAW President Shawn Fain has promoted the wins in Detroit as providing momentum to a union that is looking to expand its membership more broadly in the auto industry, a goal that has been elusive in the past. He has signaled that the UAW’s next targets are U.S. factories at Toyota, Tesla and foreign-owned automakers that currently don’t have union-represented workers in the U.S.
Electric vehicle jobs are booming in the anti-union South. UAW is worried
September 22, 2023 // “The auto industry’s move south hangs over these talks because now only a minority of workers are in unionized assembly plants,” said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.” While all of the Big Three’s plants are unionized, not a single plant in the South is unionized. Automakers’ transition to electric vehicles is accelerating these regional trends. Ford and GM are building battery plants below the Mason-Dixon Line, where states have laws that make unionization much harder than in the traditional working-class bastions of the Midwest. UAW leaders and union supporters worry the shift will lower compensation and cut out unions from the auto industry’s future, and they are seeking to address these concerns in talks with the Big Three.