#auto workers

[stone-cold-groove]

From the car files: press release for the 1968 Dodge Charger.

[politijohn]

Source

Direct action works. Keep it up!

[reasonsforhope]

The UAW Strike Just Got Even Bigger

Seven thousand more UAW members just walked off the job, expanding the strike to two more plants. Twenty-five thousand autoworkers are now o

Seven thousand more UAW members just walked off the job, expanding the strike to two more plants. Twenty-five thousand autoworkers are now on strike, and the walkout could continue to escalate if the Big Three don’t budge in negotiations.

[UAW president Shawn] Fain announced that Stellantis would be spared this time. The union had been expected to strike all three companies, but, said Region 1 director LaShawn English, three minutes before Fain was scheduled to go on Facebook Live, the UAW received frantic emails from company representatives.

[Note: Love that for the UAW. Also laughing so hard. Three minutes before the next round of strikes were annouced!!]

According to Fain, Stellantis made “significant progress” on cost-of-living allowances, the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures. “We are excited about this momentum at Stellantis and hope it continues,” Fain said...

“See You Next Week — Maybe?”

“These guys wanted to go out a long time ago,” said Cody Zaremba, a Local 602 member at the Lansing GM plant after the news broke that his plant would be joining the strike. “We’re ready. Everybody, truly, I believe, in the entire membership. They’re one with what’s going on.”

Five thousand workers at thirty-eight parts distribution centers across twenty-one states have been on strike since last Friday [September 22, 2023], along with thirteen thousand at three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri who walked out on September 15. (See a map of all struck facilities here.) ...

The UAW is now calling on community supporters to organize small teams to canvass dealerships that sell and repair Big Three cars and trucks. On Tuesday, the union issued a canvassing tool kit with instructions, flyers, press releases, and talking points.

In negotiations with Ford and GM, autoworkers have clinched some important gains. Among them is an agreement by both companies to end at least one of the many tiers in current contracts, putting workers at certain parts plants back on the same wage scale as assembly workers. The top rate for Big Three assembly workers is currently around $32...

Ford was spared in last week’s escalation, because bargainers there had made further progress on gains for workers.

But today, the UAW once again called out workers at Ford and GM, putting some muscle behind its bold demands — a big wage boost, a shorter workweek, elimination of tiers, cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation, protection from plant closures, conversion of temps to permanent employees, and the restoration of retiree health care and benefit-defined pensions to all workers.

-via Jacobin, September 29, 2023. Article continues below.

Keep Them Guessing

This year, for the first time in recent history, the union has played the three auto companies against each other with its strike strategy, departing from the union’s tradition of choosing one target company and patterning an agreement at the other two.

The stand-up strike strategy draws inspiration from an approach known as CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System), first deployed in 1993 by Alaska Airlines flight attendants, who announced they would be striking random flights. Although they struck only seven flights in a two-month period, Alaska had to send scabs on every plane, just in case. The unpredictability drew enormous media attention and drove management up the wall. Meanwhile the union was able to conserve its strength and minimize risk.

The companies miscalculated where the UAW was going to strike first, stockpiling engines and shipping them cross-country to the wrong facilities. Autoworkers relished the self-inflicted supply chain chaos on UAW Facebook groups and other social media platforms.

Nonstrikers’ morale on the factory floor has gotten a boost from rank and filers organizing to refuse voluntary overtime. With support both from Fain and the reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), workers have been encouraging each other to “Eight and Skate,” meaning to turn down extra work and decline to do management any favors.

Majority Public Support

A majority of Americans support the UAW strikers, and the Big Three have taken a PR hit since the strike began, according to a new survey conducted by the business intelligence firm Caliber.

“Eighty-seven percent of respondents told us they were aware of the strike,” Caliber CEO Shahar Silbershatz told the Intercept. “It’s clear the strike is not just causing commercial repercussions, but reputational repercussions as well.”

These reputational repercussions will only worsen...

"We Can Unmake It"

Fain didn't pull any punches in his speech... “That’s what’s different about working-class people. Whether we’re building cars or trucks or running parts distribution centers; whether we’re writing movies or performing TV shows... we do the heavy lifting. We do the real work. Not the CEOs, not the executives.

"And though we don’t know it, that’s what power is. We have the power. The world is of our making. The economy is of our making. This industry is of our making.

“And as we’ve shown, when we withhold our labor, we can unmake it.”

-via Jacobin, September 29, 2023

[troythecatfish]

[twinsetspammer]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Class struggle is back! 150,000 Auto Workers poised to strike

A strike by 150,000 workers at automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) looks imminent.   In a recent Facebook Li

A strike by 150,000 workers at automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) looks imminent.  United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has aptly declared contract talks as war between billionaires and workers.  

If the Auto Workers walk out when their contract expires on Sept. 14, it would be the second-largest strike in over 25 years, second only to the current actors’ strike by 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA. 

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Canadian Ford autoworkers ratify Unifor deal with 54% approval | CBC News

Canadian autoworkers have voted to accept a new three-year contract with automaker Ford, according to Unifor.

Canadian autoworkers have narrowly approved a new three-year contract with automaker Ford, according to Unifor.

The union said that 54 per cent of their members voted in favour of a new deal that sees wage increases, signing bonuses and reactivates a cost-of-living allowance.

Ford, in a statement released on Sunday, called the deal "historic" as it announced the company had agreed to the largest wage increase in the company's Canadian history.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Mayor Objects To Police In East Windsor," Border Cities Star. April 10, 1934. Page 3. --- Says Windsor Constables Should Not Be There ---- MAYOR CROLL this afternoon protested the transportation of Windsor police to the East Windsor strike zone.

His Worship, learning that Chief Wigle had sent a detachment of 18 officers to the East Windsor police headquarters this morning, promptly voiced his disapproval in a most emphatic manner and called an emergency sitting of the Windsor Police Commission to deal with the situation.

"I did not hear of the move until noon," the mayor announced. "The East Windsor affair is not a criminal situation and our police had no business there. The situation in East Windsor is an economic matter, not a criminal matter, and our police are not to be used to coerce strikers in the automobile plants of East Windsor or other municipalities."

Mayor Croll added, "I was in total ignorance of the move until 12 o'clock but I immediately took action."

The mayor called the meeting of the commission directly he returned from the strike picket lines in front of the Canadian Motor Lamp Company in Seminole street.

The mayor went to East Windsor to verify conflicting reports of the presence there of the Windsor officers.

At 2:45 this afternoon the Windsor police officers were still in East Windsor.

At 3.20 Mayor Croll sent the Windsor police back to Windsor.