Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, is pictured at a factory in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in July. REBECCA COOK (Portal)
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain had already announced that this was his idea, but now he has put it into action. The center, which brings together auto workers across the U.S. from companies like General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the Big Three, wants to expand its reach. This Wednesday it launched an offensive to encourage workers at more than a dozen companies in the sector to form unions, including the American Tesla, the Japanese Toyota and the European Volkswagen.
The success of the automobile strike, the first to take place simultaneously against Detroit’s Big Three, gave the union wings. The new agreements, which provide for salary increases of more than 30% and other concessions from the companies, have triggered a chain reaction at other manufacturers’ plants, which have also approved significant salary increases. Yet non-union workers lag far behind those in UAW-affiliated workplaces in wages, benefits and workplace rights. Now the UAW is openly appealing to more than 150,000 employees from other companies to join its ranks.
In the United States, it is common for employees’ preparatory work to unionize in the workplace to be done discreetly to prevent the company from excluding them. This time, however, the UAW is moving forward with an appeal. “In an unprecedented move, auto workers from more than a dozen non-union automakers nationwide have announced simultaneous campaigns to join the UAW,” the union said in a statement. “The organizing campaign will include nearly 150,000 auto workers from at least 13 automakers,” he added.
One of the strongest campaigns is taking place at the Toyota assembly plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, where 7,800 workers produce the company’s Camry model as well as the highly profitable RAV 4 and Lexus ES, the union says.
In a video, UAW President Shawn Fain describes the common problems faced by all workers in the sector, which the union divides into the Big Three (Ford, GM, Stellantis), the German Three (Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW) and the Japanese and Korean Six (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru, Mazda) and the electric car sector (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). In his message, Fain points to the record profits of some of these companies, using the same strategy he used during the recent strike to demand improvements in agreements.
“To all the autoworkers who work without the benefits of a union: Now it’s your turn,” Fain says in the video. “Since we began our stand-up strike, the response from auto workers at non-union companies has been overwhelming. Workers from all over the country, from the West to the Midwest and especially the South, are coming to join our movement and the UAW (…) There is a better life out there,” he adds.
The new campaign launches on the same day that General Motors enjoyed rapid stock market success after announcing a multimillion-dollar stock buyback and dividend increase. The company expressed optimism that it could offset wage increases agreed after the strike by reducing other fixed costs.
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