Posts tagged Toyota
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.
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.
Judge: Kentucky distillery influenced union vote with free bottles of bourbon
April 11, 2024 // According to the judge’s decision, the distillery often gave employees bottles of bourbon for occasions such as the Kentucky Derby or when specific goals were hit but the targets were announced in advance. However, the November 2022 bottles appeared to be the idea of an upper-level manager who emailed “it may not be a bad time to gift all our employees a nice bottle like we have done a few times before,” according to the decision. Brown-Forman said the distribution was “solely in recognition of them achieving 5 consecutive months” of productivity records between May and September. However employees had not been notified in advance of a specific goal as an incentive, making the timing suspect, the judge said.
Seeking to defy history, the UAW is coming closer to unionizing in the South
April 7, 2024 // Southern politicians have offered their own biting criticism of this latest UAW push, framing their opposition as a move to protect jobs. "Alabama has become a national leader in automotive manufacturing, and all this was achieved without a unionized workforce," wrote Alabama Governor Kay Ivey in an op-ed for the Alabama Department of Commerce. "Make no mistake about it: These are out-of-state special interest groups, and their special interests do not include Alabama or the men and women earning a career in Alabama's automotive industry."
UAW membership fell 3.3% in 2023 to 370,000 workers
April 1, 2024 // The UAW is "clear-eyed that our union and many of our industries have been going in the wrong direction for years," a union spokesperson said, adding that is "why we’ve made a historic commitment to organizing the rest of the auto industry, tens of thousands of higher education workers, and everyone in our core industries from heavy truck to agricultural implements to aerospace."
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.”
UAW moves to hold unionization vote at Volkswagen plant in Tennessee
March 18, 2024 // The UAW said a supermajority of eligible Volkswagen workers signed union cards to call for the election at the Chattanooga plant. The facility is Volkswagen's only assembly plant in the U.S. and employs about 4,100 workers who make the Atlas and ID.4. The union added that it "is the only Volkswagen plant globally with no form of employee representation."
UAW says 30% of workers at Toyota Missouri factory seek to join union
March 7, 2024 // The company "has no way to verify or determine the accuracy of the statements made by the UAW," a spokesperson said Wednesday. "We do not believe a third party at our manufacturing facilities would enhance the results, stability or team member experience that we have achieved together. We are confident that with all of the facts, our team members would not choose union representation." Expand article logo Continue reading It was not clear when the UAW might seek a vote but it has said previously it wants to see support from 70% of a plant's workforce before pushing for a vote of employees on whether to join the union.
UAW shakeup leads to reassignments amid criticism of a new leader
February 29, 2024 // While Fain's letter suggested a calm transition of duties, a more explicit version of events was posted Wednesday in a statement on the website and Facebook page run by the activist group Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which began as a dissident group backing Fain and Mock during their elections to leadership a year ago. It describes itself as "a grassroots movement of UAW members in good standing, united in the common goal of building a more democratic and fighting union." The statement said 11 of the 14 members of the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) had voted to reassign departments overseen by Mock, including departments now headed by English and Dickerson.