Posts tagged Stellantis
Commentary: UAW campaign to organize Southeast carmakers gets into gear
January 11, 2024 // The announcement in Tuscaloosa follows a similar one by workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., in December. Both the VW and Mercedes announcements are at the leading edge of an “unprecendented” new campaign by the UAW targeting 13 carmakers, from Hyundai and Rivian to Tesla and Honda, according to The Detroit Free Press. That drive pushes the union into territory long hostile to organized labor. Only about 5 percent of Southern workers are in a union, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Republican politicians have long used the region’s low union involvement as a selling point.
NLRB complaint alleges Lucid fired employees for union effort
January 10, 2024 // This is not the first time the union has attempted to organize outside of its traditional Big Three stronghold. It has been able to get enough support at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to have union elections there twice, and twice at plants operated by Nissan in Canton, Mississippi, and Smyrna, Tennessee. But most of the efforts to organize companies like Tesla failed before even reaching the point of an NLRB-supervised representation election.
UAW President Shawn Fain plans to keep automakers sweating
January 1, 2024 // "I don't like what I've seen in my work career with the UAW leadership, where they were too damn close to the companies," UAW President Shawn Fain told CNN earlier this month. But when asked if things work better for his members when there's a less contentious or more contentious relationship between the UAW and the Big Three, Fain responded, "We just negotiated the most successful contracts in our history," he said. "For the last 30 years that I've been a member, we went backwards. So I like to let the body of work speak for itself," Fain said. The success of those contracts is the reason that Shawn Fain is CNN Business' labor leader of the year.
German Union Backs UAW Organizing Effort at VW Chattanooga
December 23, 2023 // IG Metall, which participated in the UAW’s failed organizing drives at Chattanooga in 2014 and 2019, also has a stake in the UAW’s new fight in Tennessee. IG Metall, Germany’s largest labor union, represents 125,000 VW workers.
Tesla to Raise Wages at Nevada Gigafactory Amid Pressure to Unionize
December 21, 2023 // During the UAW's strike against the Big Three, analysts noted that Tesla could stand to gain as lost revenue from the strike and higher labor costs under new contracts could make it more difficult for traditional automakers to make the EV transition. Tesla is not the only automaker to raise wages following the UAW strike resolution, as Hyundai and others have taken steps to raise worker pay as well. 2 The electric vehicle maker also faces growing pressure from organized labor activity in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway over its refusal to enter into collective agreements with labor unions.
The 4-day workweek was a longshot. The UAW isn’t giving up
December 20, 2023 // And once the union and automakers started making progress toward the deal that would eventually end the strike, there was little discussion of a four-day week ever again. The union did win a record contract, with an immediate wage gain of at least 11%, an additional 14 percentage points of raises throughout the life of the contract, a return of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) and improved retirement benefits, among other gains. Most hourly workers at GM, Ford and Stellantis will be paid at least $43 an hour by the time the recently ratified contract ends in April 2028. That comes to about $1,700 a week for a 40-hour week. And the COLA is likely to raise it further than that. And while a hypothetical pay structure for an alternate deal featuring a four-day work week may be unknowable, paying that weekly wage for a 32-hour week would increase the hourly wage by about 25%, on top of the just negotiated wage hikes.
‘Louisville is a union town’: A look back at the 2023 labor movement in the metro area
December 19, 2023 // This year, Kentucky saw 16 labor actions, including strikes and protests, which is more than the combined total of labor events in 2021 and 2022, according to Cornell ILR’s Labor Action Tracker as of Dec. 7. Each of these labor actions, from union giants such as Teamsters Local 89 at UPS and United Auto Workers Local 862 at Ford to the smaller labor actions at places including Heine Brothers Coffee, Sunergos Coffee and Rainbow Blossom, have resulted in victories for Louisville workers. “People are realizing, those that work for a living in places like Ford, in places like GE [Appliances], UPS and other large employers as well as the smaller employers, the baristas in these coffee shops ... that their only real option to progress themselves at their jobs and in their lives is to come together in solidarity as union members,” Londrigan said.
UAW files unfair labor practice charges against Hyundai, Honda and Volkswagen
December 14, 2023 // The UAW has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Honda, Hyundai and Volkswagen, the union said. The union alleges management at facilities for the companies have participated in illegal “union-busting as workers organize to join the UAW.” The charges come roughly two weeks after the UAW said it was launching an unprecedented campaign to organize 13 nonunion automakers in the U.S.
Stellantis announces layoffs at Toledo Jeep plant
December 11, 2023 // As part of the new contract, the use of so-called temporary workers will change. At the Toledo plant, Stellantis said in the Thursday announcement that it will transition from an "alternative work schedule" to a traditional two-shift operation. This will lead to the loss of jobs, according to the company. According to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice from Stellantis, 1,094 of the layoffs are supplemental employees and the remaining 131 are production operators/team members. Also affected is the Mack Assembly Complex in Detroit, which will transition from a three-shift operation to a two-shift operation. Layoffs also are expected there, according to Stellantis.
Tesla: UAW seeks to unionize car maker, battle expected with CEO Elon Musk
December 6, 2023 //