Posts tagged Volkswagen
‘Battle royale’: Tesla and anti-union Musk make enticing targets for UAW’s next push
November 5, 2023 // Some current UAW members are already fired up to take on Tesla. “Go out west to California? Absolutely, I would go,” said John Jake Kincaid, a Stellantis employee in Michigan. “Show them our strength.” Still, fighting for a contract at companies with established relationships with union workers is a far different effort than starting from scratch. Several workers who were key to Tesla’s earlier union effort are no longer at the company. The Fremont plant’s history with the UAW predates the electric vehicle maker. For about 25 years, Toyota and GM operated the facility together in an unusual joint venture. It was a union shop. In 2009, GM pulled out of the partnership as part of its bankruptcy proceedings and in 2010 Toyota shut the operation down, throwing 4,700 people out of work. A month later, Tesla bought the sprawling 5.3 million square foot factory; the union didn’t come with the purchase.
Commentary: Ford-UAW deal: Declare victory and go home
October 26, 2023 // The Ford Motor Company and the UAW struck a deal Tuesday for a 25 percent increase in the union members pay. It was only marginally higher than the 23 percent offer that had been on the table for weeks and far short of the 40 percent than the union had originally wanted. That’s not to say that 25 percent isn’t a significant increase for those workers but they likely could have had it a weeks ago. The union held out for much more until it was apparent that management wasn’t going to be that generous. Still, it was a win for new UAW President Shawn Fain, who got what he wanted. He got lots of media coverage of him leading a strike where he got to talk tough and make bold promises. But he did this without actually straining the union’s strike fund too much, because most workers weren’t striking.
Op-ed: In the wake of the UAW strike, automakers and workers should move to a state that values them
October 23, 2023 // The “us vs. them” mentality of the UAW has created an antagonistic relationship between workers and the automakers’ management, leading to outrageous demands that aren’t in their members’ best interests. Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis will not survive if they have to pay people not to work or offer outdated retirement plans that lead to bankruptcy. Workers deserve better than this. They deserve to have a collaborative relationship with automakers — the kind that leads to both higher wages for workers and stronger competitiveness for companies. That’s why more automakers should look to expand and hire in Tennessee, where we put worker freedom first.
Electric vehicle jobs are booming in the anti-union South. UAW is worried
September 22, 2023 // “The auto industry’s move south hangs over these talks because now only a minority of workers are in unionized assembly plants,” said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.” While all of the Big Three’s plants are unionized, not a single plant in the South is unionized. Automakers’ transition to electric vehicles is accelerating these regional trends. Ford and GM are building battery plants below the Mason-Dixon Line, where states have laws that make unionization much harder than in the traditional working-class bastions of the Midwest. UAW leaders and union supporters worry the shift will lower compensation and cut out unions from the auto industry’s future, and they are seeking to address these concerns in talks with the Big Three.
Unions seek gains in hostile territory: ‘If you change the South, you change America’
September 15, 2023 // The Union of Southern Service Workers, an SEIU-backed group, is organizing low-wage workers from across the service industry. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-union membership organization, is mapping blue-leaning Southern jurisdictions, such as Miami-Dade County, that could be open to enacting a floor of labor standards for homecare. That effort has already led to the passage of “Bill of Rights” legislation in 10 states and four cities. And the Southern Workers Assembly, an advocacy group for both union and non-union workers, is trying to educate and organize workplaces across the region.
Gotion floats $24-an-hour average wage as it seeks non-union plant
August 9, 2023 // “The kickoff is not intended to be union,” Thelen said of workers in the plant. “If the workers are unhappy and they wish to unionize, obviously we respect the right to do so. But our preference is that we make our workers so happy that they feel they don’t need a union, and that’s the way you should collaborate with your workforce.”
Tennessee legislators moving bill to block incentives for companies that allow unions via ‘card check’
March 8, 2023 // Both companies that are going into the West Tennessee Site, Ford and SK Innovation, have agreed to the majority card check method, which the National Labor Relations Board allows. In that approach, a majority of workers sign a document or "card" agreeing they want the union to represent them. It's favored by unions, including the United Auto Workers. Union organizers can get workers' names, addresses, email and cellphone numbers to contact and seek their signature on a card, including go to a worker's home to discuss that. The legislation's aim is to prevent that.
Union membership grows the fastest of any state in Tennessee over the past two years
January 24, 2023 // The number of Tennessee workers belonging to labor unions has grown over the past two years at the fastest rate of any state in the country. Fueled by a growth in unionized government employees, building trades and autoworkers, union membership in Tennessee jumped by more than 39% from the pandemic low in 2020 to reach 163,000 members last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For all its gains, however, organized labor still represents only a fraction of workers in Tennessee, especially in the private sector. Last year, 5.5% of all workers across Tennessee were union members, or only about half of the 10.1% share of workers nationwide who belong to a labor union, according to the statistics bureau.
The Motor City is moving south as EVs change the automotive industry
August 15, 2022 // Detroit is the city that “put the world on wheels,” but it’s towns like Spring Hill and others in neighboring states that are attracting the most investments from automakers in recent years, as production priorities shift to a battery-powered future with electric vehicles. Companies more than ever want to build EVs where they sell them, because the vehicles are far heavier and more cumbersome to ship than traditional models with internal combustion engines. They also want facilities for battery production to be close by to avoid supply chain and logistics problems. SPRING HILL, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Hyundai Motor, Rivian Automotive, workforce, supply chain and logistics, lowest electricity prices,
UAW, more than 60 workers at non-union automakers eye organizing push
June 28, 2022 // Amid a nationwide surge in worker momentum and public support for unions, the United Auto Workers is making a renewed push to build on-the-ground interest in organizing non-unionized auto plants. More than 60 workers at 10 automakers that don't have contracts with the UAW met late last month in Birmingham, Alabama, to discuss how to organize plants across the country, UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada told The Detroit News. Steve Cochran, Susan Schurman,