Posts tagged joint venture
A year later, where does the UAW’s southern organizing campaign stand?
December 11, 2024 // That's where many auto manufacturers, both foreign and domestic, are locating their plants in recent years, and that trend will continue if it means automakers can pay less for labor. In 2023, the UAW's membership shrunk to about 370,000 members, the lowest number since the Great Recession. "The rule in labor organizing is, you have to organize the critical labor market," Schurman said. But the UAW also must prepare to play the long game, even if it means losing elections on the initial try.
UAW says majority of workers at Ford joint-venture battery plant sign union cards
November 22, 2024 // The UAW said a "supermajority" of workers at the Ford Kentucky battery plant had signed union cards indicating their support. It did not specify the percentage. "We want to maintain a direct relationship with our employees," BlueOval SK Human Resources Director Neva Burke said in a statement. Ford directed Reuters to BlueOval SK for comment.
Union autoworkers won big after striking. A year later, some face an uncertain future
September 15, 2024 // Now, workers are wondering how committed the trans-Atlantic automaker is to remain in the U.S. at all. For years, Cooper says, old-timers at his plant in Toledo have warned that if wages rose too much, the company would move jobs to Mexico. It's a threat he's always shrugged off, given how profitable the Jeep plant has been for Stellantis.
Ford says it is ‘at the limit’ with UAW contract offer
October 13, 2023 // Ford officials said on Thursday that cutting a deal that does not allow the company to survive makes no sense and that striking the Kentucky truck plant would also hurt the UAW's profit-sharing checks. In a sign of the strike's expanding impact, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) said on Thursday it is feeling a pinch from the automotive and entertainment labor strikes. Delta President Glen Hauenstein said the UAW strike has curtailed a "significant" amount of business in Detroit. Automakers have more than doubled initial wage hike offers, agreed to raise wages along with inflation and improved pay for temporary workers, but the union wants higher wages still, the abolishment of a two-tier wage system and the expansion of unions to battery plants. The UAW has room to expand its walkouts and increase the pressure on the Detroit Three to offer bigger wage gains, richer retirement packages and more assurances that new electric vehicle battery plants will be unionized.
OP-ED: BIDEN IS INVESTING IN GREEN ENERGY ACROSS THE SOUTH — THROWING SWING STATE UNION WORKERS UNDER THE BUS
July 12, 2023 // The success of the climate program will require continued federal commitment. Biden is placing a bet that clean energy investments could ultimately work the same way as the military-industrial complex. The military and its allied contractors have made sure to set up bases and/or manufacturing facilities in nearly every congressional district in the country, with extra attention paid to areas represented by key lawmakers. That has produced durable support for ever-expanding military budgets. Whether the same could be accomplished for the clean energy industry is an open question, but so far, Republicans from districts that have won federal awards have nevertheless voted to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which funds the tax breaks. By subsidizing the decline of union jobs, the Biden administration risks empowering lawmakers who will then move to end the subsidies altogether. “The total lack of consideration for workers could certainly make the difference in 2024.” “What Biden is doing is politically insane, environmentally bankrupt, and it’s poor economics,” Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and board member of Our Revolution, told The Intercept.
Biden’s push for electric cars alienates longtime union allies
June 29, 2023 // The union initially backed many of Trump's protectionist trade policies when he was president, including renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which they blamed for allowing U.S. manufacturing jobs to go to Mexico. Biden's re-election campaign, meanwhile, points to the historic early endorsements from the AFL-CIO and 17 others unions as proof of the president's pro-labor stance. The bottom line: At a time when Democrats need the Midwest to preserve political power, the president's commitment to promoting EVs is testing his support among longtime allies.
The Morning Shift: UAW Faces An Uphill Fight On Unionizing Battery Plants
June 9, 2023 // While workers at the Ultium are organized and fighting for a contract, once agreed it won’t be applicable to workers at other EV facilities. Instead, UAW will have to run organizing drives and bargain locally at each site. Meanwhile, Ford has plans for three sites with SK On and one with Chinese partner CATL in Michigan; Stellantis will open a new plant with Samsung SDI in 2025; and GM has three U.S. battery plants coming with Korean partners, so the UAW will have its work cut out for it.
AUTOS UAW withholding Biden reelection endorsement until EV concerns are addressed
May 5, 2023 // Leaders of the United Auto Workers are withholding a reelection endorsement for President Joe Biden until the union’s concerns about the auto industry’s transition to all-electric vehicles are addressed. UAW President Shawn Fain says the union wants a “just transition” for workers, as the government uses taxpayer money to subsidize the EV industry. This doesn’t mean the historically Democratic union is backing a Republican. In the Tuesday letter, Fain also noted “another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.”
Auto workers union and Sanders blast GM for wages at U.S. battery plant
May 2, 2023 // United Auto Workers (UAW) union President Shawn Fain and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday criticized a General Motors joint venture battery plant for paying workers much less than assembly plant employees even though it benefits from hefty U.S. government tax credits. Workers at the Warren, Ohio, joint venture Ultium Cells LLC plant start at $16.50 an hour rising to $20 an hour after seven years while union workers at a nearby Ohio GM assembly plant that closed in 2019 made $32 an hour or more.
New UAW Leader Already Has Issues With Detroit Automakers
April 25, 2023 // Speaking to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, Fain said members are demanding that the union win back cost-of-living pay raises and pensions they lost, and the elimination of tiers of workers who are paid differently but do the same jobs. They also want assurances that good-paying union jobs will be preserved as the companies transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to those that run on electricity. Auto companies, he said, have made billions over the last decade but workers haven’t gotten their fair share since the companies got into financial trouble in 2009. “I want to work with the companies. I want to have a good relationship,” Fain said. “But if they’re not going to treat our members with respect and not give them their due, then we’re going to have issues.”