Posts tagged United Auto Workers
Las Vegas hospitality workers authorize strike against hotels, casinos
September 28, 2023 // The union represents more than 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and is one of Nevada’s strongest political forces. More than 95 percent of workers voted to authorize a strike Tuesday, the union announced. More than 40,000 members are working without a contract as the union seeks better pay, benefits and working conditions in negotiations with top casino companies including, MGM International, Wynn and Caesars Entertainment. The union did not set a deadline for a walkout, but a full strike would effectively freeze all activity on the Las Vegas Strip, key to the city’s economy. The union represents nearly all nongaming workers at hotels and casinos, including housekeepers, waitstaff and kitchen staff.
Commentary: Leaked Messages From UAW Official Reveal a Big Cause of Unions’ Decline
September 28, 2023 // If union officials actually want to protect UAW jobs and improve workers’ compensation, then they have to want the Big Three American automakers to succeed and to grow. Considering that U.S. auto production is less than half of what it was two decades ago, success is likely going to require that the UAW work alongside—rather than against—U.S. automakers to help them become more competitive. To the extent that involves lobbying policymakers, the focus should be on getting the government out of the business of picking winners and losers by its subsidizing of more expensive electric vehicles that require 40% less labor while also seeking to ban gas-powered vehicles that Americans still overwhelmingly desire. And if unions across America want to increase their membership, they should appeal directly to workers by offering things they value instead of using their dues to get politicians to go against their interests by doing things like attacking secret ballot union elections, restricting employers’ ability to share important information with workers before union elections, and establishing a pathway to force an employer to bargain with a union even if workers don’t want to be represented by it.
Donald Trump: UAW negotiations ‘don’t mean as much as you think’
September 28, 2023 //
Illinois House Speaker pushes bill to allow the statehouse to unionize
September 28, 2023 // What they want: The Illinois workers say union representation would protect them when they want to speak up and allow them to bargain for better wages. With Welch behind the legislation, passage is all but assured in the Democratic-controlled House. Pritzker, who a few months backed the contract for AFSCME Council 31 state employees, has signaled he supports the legislative employees’ union efforts. That’s a far cry from California, which took five tries before it was able to pass legislation earlier this month to allow staffers to unionize.
UAW strike: What the media won’t tell you about the strike
September 21, 2023 // The Wall Street Journal reported that some in the UAW, including President Shawn Fain, pushed for a full strike, but “there was a simple financial calculation to consider: Such an option would rapidly drain the UAW’s $825 million fund that it uses to pay striking workers, likely depleting it within about two months.” In other words, the union itself doesn’t think it could hold out for long if it tried to shut all three companies. Hence the spin surrounding the current limited strike: UAW is trying to make a virtue out of necessity. In past negotiations, UAW has tried to secure a deal with one of the three automakers ahead of the others and then use that agreement as a template for bargaining with the other two. That UAW didn’t try that this time suggests the union feared it could not wrestle even one company to the ground.
Why it seems like everyone’s going on strike on Biden’s watch
September 19, 2023 // Biden was able to intervene directly in talks between railroads and rail workers since federal law gives the government a big say in that industry’s labor relations due to its economic importance. And his top Labor Department official was involved in a deal this year between West Coast ports and dockworkers. Here’s how the administration publicly stepped in — or didn’t — in some of organized labor’s most high-profile moments.
Starbucks Union: College Students Use Billboards, Leafleting in Solidarity Action
September 18, 2023 // Today, inspired in part by the recent developments at Cornell, 11 university campuses are unveiling solidarity billboards that criticize Starbucks’ union-busting tactics, which are so copious, the NLRB, according to the Guardian, has brought over 100 cases against the company — though it cannot hold the company accountable with fines or other punitive mechanisms. (Starbucks told Bloomberg it plans to appeal the NLRB ruling in Ithaca.) Students on those 11 campuses, including the University of Arizona, the University of Washington, and the University of Chicago, will spend today leafleting outside local Starbucks locations to support workers’ unionization efforts. “Students prefer our coffee union-brewed," reads one of the billboards. "We support Starbucks baristas & demand an end to Starbucks' union-busting.”
As Democrats back auto workers, GOP spots a divide over EVs
September 18, 2023 // The administration has been doling out funding provided by the 2021 infrastructure law for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and giving tax credits for electric vehicle buyers enacted in a 2022 reconciliation bill. Autoworkers see the push to electric vehicles as resulting in jobs in non-union factories in the U.S. and abroad, a contradiction of Biden’s promises to boost domestic manufacturing. The workers are also disgruntled about the EPA’s proposed rule on tailpipe emissions. The walkout began after the carmakers’ offers failed to meet the UAW’s demands for a double-digit wage increase over four years, reinstatement of cost-of-living pay increases, and more paid time off.
Auto workers strike would test Biden’s assertion he’s the ‘most pro-union president in US history
September 13, 2023 // Union support was instrumental in helping Biden overcome a slow start to clinch the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and it helped him win not just Michigan but Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as he defeated Trump in that year's general election. Underscoring his commitment to organized labor, Biden's lone campaign rally since launching his reelection bid in April came in June in Philadelphia, when more than a dozen of the country's largest and most powerful unions endorsed Biden for a second term. So many unions banding together for an unprecedented joint endorsement so early in the election cycle was meant as a show of strength for the president. Conspicuously absent from the event, though, was the UAW. Fain has since said that if Biden wants the UAW's 2024 endorsement, he'll have to earn it.
Biden takes shot at Trump on jobs in battleground Pennsylvania
September 5, 2023 // A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed that the economy, unemployment and jobs remained Americans' top concern. A full 60% of Americans, including one in three Democrats, said they disapproved of Biden's handling of inflation, according to the poll. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge has moved down to 3.3%, from its peak of 7% last summer. Although the decline was a "welcome development," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said late last month, inflation "remains too high" and interest rates may need to move higher. Republicans and some economists say Democratic policies helped spark the rise in prices, making Americans pay more for rent, groceries and gasoline under Biden's watch. Economists say inflation was also stoked by the lifting of COVID-era restrictions and revival of business activity that followed.