Posts tagged General Motors
Video Game Union Organizers’ New Tactic for Workers: Don’t Unionize, Technically
March 21, 2025 // On Wednesday the Communications Workers of America announced the launch of a new direct-join organization, United Videogame Workers-CWA, at a labor-organizing panel at the Game Developers Conference. The group — not a certified union, but something more like a large-scale organizing group — is open to a wide range of workers in the field across employers, from full-time employees to contractors to former staffers who have been laid off. The group’s first initiative will be to circulate a petition addressing recent industry workforce cuts, while it is later planning on producing a worker “bill of rights” that will demand specific workplace standards.
UAW files labor charges against VW over Chattanooga worker buyouts
March 14, 2025 // The UAW said in a statement the company is attempting to cut jobs and make major changes without first negotiating with the union as required by law. UAW President Shawn Fain said that nearly a year ago, thousands of Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga voted to join the UAW to "win the respect and dignified life that union autoworkers at the Big Three have enjoyed for generations." "Since then, the company has failed to meet the basic standard at the bargaining table that 150,000 American autoworkers have won at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis," he said in the statement.
Bernie Moreno, former car dealer elected to Senate, says Fain is a hack not helping workers
November 12, 2024 // Moreno did try to save jobs back in 2018 when General Motors announced it would permanently close its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio, which built the Chevrolet Cruze sedan. As the Free Press reported in 2019, Moreno met with GM leaders, proposing to buy 150,000 to 180,000 Cruze cars to start a global ride-hailing company similar to Uber. GM CEO Mary Barra rejected the idea. GM shuttered Lordstown that spring.
Unions face a moment of truth in Michigan in this year’s presidential race
October 18, 2024 // Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs. They emphasize Democratic achievements in states like Michigan, including the recent repeal of a union-restricting right-to-work law enacted over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled legislature. With membership dwindling in states like Michigan, Fain will need to attract more than just union workers to secure a victory for Harris, who has campaigned in the state alongside him. If the union president cannot deliver Michigan after all these efforts, it could raise questions about his union's political influence in future elections.
Unions Defy Their Leadership With More ‘No’ Votes on Contracts
October 16, 2024 // Fed up with inflation and seizing a moment of labor power, workers at Boeing, AT&T and Southwest reject deals negotiated by union bosses
UAW Volkswagen Workers Negotiating For Strong First Contract
October 3, 2024 // Negotiations are underway between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Volkswagen in Tennessee as the two sides work to hammer out the very first contract between VW union members and the automaker. Earlier this year, 4,300 workers at the VW's Chattanooga plant voted almost 3-to-1 to join the UAW, becoming the first Southern autoworkers outside the Big Three to unionize. The all-electric VW ID.4 is one model built at the plant.
Ports strike would leave Walmart, Ikea, Home Depot with few import options, union warns
September 29, 2024 // These companies are among the leading importers at the 14 major ports that an ILA strike would impact, according to ImportGenius. Overall, between 43%-49% of all U.S. imports and billions of dollars in trade monthly are at stake as the union moves closer to the Oct. 1 deadline for a new contract, over which talks between the union and ports management broke down in June and have not resumed. Cruise operations at ports would continue. “To stop trade entering the U.S. on such a large-scale, even for short period of time, is highly-damaging to the economy so government intervention will be needed to bring the matter to a resolution for the good of the nation,” warned Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at Xeneta. “A strike lasting just one week will impact schedules for ships leaving the Far East on voyages to the U.S. in late December and throughout January.”
GM to lay off about 1,700 workers at Kansas plant
September 24, 2024 // Under the second phase, to begin on Jan. 12 of next year, 759 full-time workers will be temporarily laid off, the spokesperson confirmed. In May, GM said it would pause production of the Cadillac XT4 after January 2025 in Kansas, resulting in layoffs of production employees until manufacturing resumed in late 2025 for both the Bolt EV and XT4 on the same assembly line.
Boeing union members are angry they lost their pension plan. They’re not likely to get it back
September 24, 2024 // But the fact is that the traditional pension plans, once a staple of the retirement of many workers, have become exceedingly rare in the modern American workplace. And once a company drops traditional pensions plans to shift employees to a 401(k) type of retirement account, they are almost always gone for good. While other unions have also sought to have lost pension plans restored, as the United Auto Workers union did during its successful strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis last fall, no American union has ever succeeded in bringing them back. Even though the auto strike produced a deal with record pay raises and other gains for the UAW, it did not restore pension plans to workers hired since 2007.
UAW President Shawn Fain announces strike authorization votes against Stellantis
September 19, 2024 // While Stellantis had not commented Tuesday night on the UAW's plan to hold strike authorization votes, Fain vowed to keep fighting and force the company to honor its commitments. "Last year in our strike, we went on offense and we won," Fain said. "Stellantis wants everyone to believe they simply can't afford to keep their commitments to American autoworkers. But let's be clear, Stellantis is one of the most profitable auto companies in the world."