Posts tagged UAW
Whatever happened to the effort by workers to unionize KY’s EV battery plant?
July 11, 2025 // The KyPolicy report says pressure from successful UAW bargaining at Louisville’s Kentucky Truck Plant and Ford Assembly Plant, and at Bowling Green’s General Motors Corvette facility has resulted in non-union plants across the state to boost wages. In December, BlueOval said starting wages would increase by between $2.50 and $3.50 per hour to as little as $21 per hour and as much as $32 per hour.
There’s a Crisis Brewing at UAW
July 10, 2025 // Fain allegedly engaged in other behavior unbecoming of a union leader. According to the report, he launched into a “tirade” over printed material describing the UAW’s tentative agreement with Stellantis, yelling, “Who told you to put [Mock’s] motherf***ing photo on there? This is my motherf***ing membership.” He then allegedly shouted, “who the f**k runs this mother***ing department?” The report notes that the UAW employee on the receiving end of Fain’s outburst was left shaken and in tears. In a response submitted to the court on June 20, Harold Gurewitz, the UAW’s attorney and a criminal-defense specialist, argued that the union’s decision to remove Mock’s responsibilities “should not be subject to judicial or governmental interference.” Regardless of the legal merits, the idea that the union president’s personal judgement, no matter how irrational or corrupt, is beyond scrutiny is likely to rankle union dissidents. Some staged a “No Kings” rally outside UAW headquarters in Detroit following the release of the monitor’s report—a message aimed at President Fain, not President Trump.
Alabama auto plant plans to fight UAW’s latest state union organizing effort
July 9, 2025 // As in 2024’s organizing efforts at other factories, International Motors plant management began communicating with employees, even over the July 4 holiday. On Wednesday, workers received a letter about the UAW, saying that they “hestitate(d) to interrupt your family time.” According to the company, it received the petition on June 27 from a group called “HPP Workers United for Change.” Prior to that, the UAW had requested a card check process for unionization, which involves a majority of employees sign authorization forms requesting a union. The company instead requested a secret ballot election, according to the company.
United Auto Workers move to unionize workers at another Alabama automotive plant
July 8, 2025 // Last year, the UAW’s executive board earmarked $40 million to fund an organizing push among non-union auto and electric battery workers, concentrating some of the money in the South. But a high-profile push to unionize Mercedes-Benz’s plant in Tuscaloosa County failed by a margin of 597 votes.
Ford, SK On battery park workers at BlueOval SK may soon be faced with a major decision
July 1, 2025 // BlueOval SK, a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and South Korean company SK On, had contested the election petition, arguing an imminent union election would wrongly leave out the preferences of thousands of yet-to-be-hired employees. The company also drove an aggressive anti-union campaign, both at the plant and in online advertisements. "Bringing in a union would slow progress, force new training, and reset everything we've built," one BlueOval SK ad said. "Don't let unnecessary changes hold us back."
Ford workers told their CEO ‘none of the young people want to work here.’ So Jim Farley took a page out of the founder’s playbook
July 1, 2025 // “The older workers who’d been at the company said, ‘None of the young people want to work here. Jim, you pay $17 an hour, and they are so stressed,’” Farley said. Farley learned some workers also held jobs at Amazon, where they worked for eight hours before clocking in to a seven-hour shift at Ford, sleeping for only three or four hours. As a result, the company made temporary workers into full-time employees, making them eligible for higher wages, profit-sharing checks, and better health care coverage. The transition was outlined in 2019 contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW), with temporary workers able to become full-time after two years of continuous employment at Ford.
Power-Hungry and Petty: How Shawn Fain Runs the UAW
June 25, 2025 // Fain had the union’s compliance director read the fabricated report of Mock’s alleged wrongdoing into the record at an executive board meeting in February 2024. Mock was never interviewed in the creation of the report, and did not know it existed until it was delivered in the meeting. Mock is a black woman. Fain coordinated with two other black women on the executive board, regional directors Laura Dickerson and LaShawn English, to strip Mock of much of her authority in the organization. Dickerson made the motion and English seconded it. The exact wording of the motion was scripted by Fain’s aides, text messages uncovered by the monitor revealed, and Dickerson said she had agreed to make the motion before the report was even finalized.
A Taft-Hartley Roundup of Recent Labor News
June 25, 2025 // For just shy of 80 years, conservative Americans and the Republican Party that provides their imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance a policy consensus on labor relations based on three principles: ensuring union membership and participation is voluntary, scrutinizing unions’ operations in exchange for their government-granted powers, and protecting the public from the fallout from labor disputes. As America sits by the pool at the beginning of what might prove to be a long, hot summer, what news is there about the Taft-Hartley consensus?
Exclusive-UAW investment blunder cost the union an estimated $80 million, documents show
June 24, 2025 // The board voted to liquidate about $340 million in stock investments in August 2023 to pay strike costs, according to a union document reviewed by Reuters. The wording of the vote stipulated that the money be reinvested according to union policy after the strike ended and the labor contracts were ratified, though it didn't specify how quickly. But almost none of its portfolio was invested in stocks during the year after the strike began in September 2023, according to the records reviewed by Reuters. The news agency was unable to establish why the stock investment wasn't made. The issue of why the union did not reinvest the funds for more than a year is now being investigated by the federal monitor which was appointed as part of a 2020 settlement between the UAW and the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve a union corruption scandal, according to a statement from a majority of UAW board members.
UAW watchdog faults Fain, portrays him as angry foul-mouthed leader who targeted underling
June 18, 2025 // United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain illegitimately retaliated against the second most-powerful leader of the union in stripping her of power after threatening to "slit" the "throats" of anyone who "messed" with his inner circle, a government watchdog said late Tuesday. The watchdog, lawyer Neil Barofsky, leveled the allegation in a quarterly report delivered to U.S. District Judge David Lawson, who gained broad control of a deal to oversee the UAW in 2020 following a years-long public corruption scandal. The scandal sent two former union presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, to federal prison along with several others convicted of breaking labor laws, stealing union funds and receiving bribes, kickbacks and illegal benefits from contractors and auto executives.