{"id":1365760,"date":"2023-12-01T13:49:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/12\/uaw-nonunion-factory-organizing-toyota-mercedes-hyundai-rivian\/"},"modified":"2023-12-04T11:05:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T11:05:11","slug":"the-united-auto-workers-are-looking-to-unionize-the-whole-auto-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/12\/01\/the-united-auto-workers-are-looking-to-unionize-the-whole-auto-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"The United Auto Workers Are Looking to Unionize the Whole Auto Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n  \n\n\n\n<h3>In the wake of its historic strike victory, the United Auto Workers says thousands of nonunion autoworkers have reached out asking for support in organizing their plants. The UAW already has plans in motion to unionize the whole US auto sector.<\/h3>\n<hr\/>\n\n<figure>\n  <img alt src=\"https:\/\/images.jacobinmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/01134852\/GettyImages-1173365396-900x600.jpg\"\/>\n  <figcaption>\n    Workers install components on a RAV4 hybrid sport utility vehicle at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, August 29, 2019. (Luke Sharrett \/ Bloomberg via Getty Images)\n  <\/figcaption>   \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n  \n  <p>\u201cThe company knows that Toyota workers are watching,\u201d said United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain on November 3. \u201cAnd when the time comes, Toyota workers and all nonunion auto workers are going to be ready to stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That time has come \u2014 yesterday the UAW announced its plan, already in motion, to organize the whole auto sector. \u201cWorkers across the country, from the West to the Midwest and especially in the South, are reaching out to join our movement and to join the UAW,\u201d said Fain in a new video.<\/p>\n<p>The union says thousands of workers have reached out asking for support in unionizing their auto plants. They\u2019ve scoured the old websites from previous union drives and filled out forms to be put in touch with an organizer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo all the autoworkers out there working without the benefits of a union: now it\u2019s your turn,\u201d he said, inviting autoworkers to join the organizing push and telling them where they can electronically sign union cards, at <a href=\"https:\/\/uaw.org\/join\/\">uaw.org\/join<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of nonunion auto workers are already organizing across the ten foreign-owned transplants, including Toyota, Hyundai, and Mercedes, as well as in the electric vehicle (EV) sector at Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid. Overall, the organizing drive will cover 150,000 workers \u2014 roughly the same number of workers covered under the Big Three contracts \u2014 across thirteen automakers.<\/p>\n<p>At Rivian\u2019s EV plant in Bloomington, Illinois, workers have already built an organizing committee, surveyed one thousand of their coworkers on major job improvements, and run petitions demanding longer breaks. There are about five thousand hourly workers at the plant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRivian already knows that we are organizing,\u201d said Sonia Williams, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear the company would retaliate. \u201cWe\u2019re not shy about it. We have given them opportunities to meet with us. They called in sick both times. We\u2019ve also handed them petitions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>UAW membership has dwindled from 1.5 million in 1979 to 383,000 in 2023. Fresh off reversing decades of concessions in auto, the union\u2019s reform leadership is now also seeking to reverse its membership decline.<\/p>\n<p>The UAW is hoping to springboard from union reform and a lucrative contract deal into new organizing, betting that workers will want to join a transformed, fighting union.<\/p>\n\n  \n\n    \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>Stand-Up 2.0<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>In the video, Fain pointed to the strategy of the Big Three autoworkers\u2019 Stand-Up Strike, which involved a calibrated ramp-up of work stoppages until the automakers \u2014 Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors (GM) \u2014 caved to worker demands. The strategy kept the companies guessing throughout.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the UAW is deploying a similar strategy, hoping to catch the companies off guard as to where a union campaign may pop up. The union is encouraging workers to run campaigns simultaneously across the nonunion automakers.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--left\"><q>The UAW is hoping to springboard from union reform and a lucrative contract deal into new organizing, betting that workers will want to join a transformed, fighting union.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>Under the plan, once 30 percent of workers at any given plant have signed union cards, workers will go public with their drive. Some plants have already met that threshold, according to the UAW. At the 50 percent mark, workers rally their coworkers, families, neighbors, and community leaders, according to the union.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as 70 percent of workers at a given plant sign cards, and have a committee made up of workers from every shift and job classification, they will demand voluntary recognition of their union. If the company refuses, the workers file for an election with the National Labor Relations Board.<\/p>\n<p>The UAW is breaking away from previous yearslong efforts at single plants in favor of what it calls a <a href=\"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/amazon-starbucks-workers-organizing-unions-momentum-movement-moment\">momentum<\/a> organizing approach, coupled with a strong inside organizing campaign.<\/p>\n<p>That approach to taking on the whole auto sector is predicated on generating momentum from each fight, opening multiple fronts in what the union hopes will swell into a tidal wave of organizing. UAW is drawing inspiration from the ongoing organizing push by Starbucks workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Starbucks Workers United [SBWU] campaign showed that it is possible to organize hundreds of workplaces, even at the most anti-union billion-dollar corporations,\u201d said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. SBWU has organized 360 stores in two years. \u201cBuilding on the momentum of its historic contract at the Big Three, there\u2019s no reason why the UAW cannot organize at multiple nonunion plants in the South. The question is whether, like the Starbucks campaign, it\u2019s able to capture the imagination of the workers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a press release, the UAW singled out Toyota\u2019s Georgetown, Kentucky, assembly complex where 7,800 workers build the company\u2019s Camry, the Rav 4 sport utility vehicle, and the luxury Lexus ES.<\/p>\n\n        \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>The UAW Bump<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>As soon as the union announced the big wage and benefit gains that Big Three workers had won, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai rushed to boost pay. Honda announced wage hikes of 11 percent; Hyundai bumped pay by 25 percent over the next four years. Toyota has offered its workers a smaller 9 percent raise to dissuade them from organizing a union.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Toyota has hauled in a quarter trillion dollars in profit in the past decade, according to the union. The company\u2019s profits have surged 30 percent, while its CEO\u2019s pay has increased by 125 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToyota isn\u2019t giving out raises out of the goodness of their heart,\u201d Fain <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MorePerfectUS\/status\/1720443876350046524\">said<\/a> in a video statement shared by More Perfect Union. \u201cToyota is the largest and most profitable auto company in the world. They could have just as easily raised wages a month ago or a year ago. They did it now because the company knows we\u2019re coming for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven though you\u2019re not yet members of our union, that pay raise Toyota\u2019s giving you is the UAW bump,\u201d Fain said, addressing Toyota workers. \u201cUAW. That stands for \u2018You are welcome.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are welcome to join our Stand-Up movement. If this is what Toyota gives you when the Big Three stand up and fight, imagine what you could accomplish if you join the UAW and stand up and fight for yourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n        \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>High Productivity, Long Hours<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>The pay raise hasn\u2019t changed Toyota worker Jeff Allen\u2019s resolve to organize with his coworkers at Georgetown. \u201cWe are tired of going backwards while our company continues to move forward,\u201d said Allen. \u201cWe want the security of having a contract to protect our total compensation for now and our future.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--right\"><q>\u2018We are tired of going backwards while our company continues to move forward,\u2019 said Toyota worker Jeff Allen. \u2018We want the security of having a contract to protect our total compensation for now and our future.\u2019<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>At Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, twelve-year team member Gilbert Brooks has had organizing a union on his mind since he was hired. He had been a member of the Steelworkers for eleven years at the Goodyear tire factory in Anniston. At Hyundai, 3,500 hourly, temporary, and contract employees assemble the Santa Fe, Tucson, and Santa Cruz, the Genesis GV70, and the Electrified GV70.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe build 1,500 cars a day and five hundred cars a shift,\u201d said Brooks. When measured by the speed a car is produced, this is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kedglobal.com\/automobiles\/newsView\/ked202201110018\">the second-most productive plant in the world<\/a>. That high productivity, he says, should be rewarded with higher wages. He earns $28.35 an hour, which will go up to around $30 in January after the promised wage hike. The company is also offering a $4,000 bonus. New hires start at around $19.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past three years, Hyundai\u2019s profits have soared 75 percent, while its vehicle prices rose 32 percent. \u201cWe are underpaid and overworked,\u201d Brooks said. His point of comparison is what his ex-wife will earn at GM\u2019s Spring Hill plant in Tennessee: she\u2019ll go from $25 to $35 an hour right away under the new UAW contract at GM.<\/p>\n<p>But the main sticking points are safety and respect on the job. He said the company forces workers to do jobs that really require two people and changes work rules on a whim. The result is injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2012, Brooks said, he has undergone two neck and two rotator cuff surgeries. He sustained the first work-related injuries in 2014 after grueling ten-hour shifts on the trim line installing brackets on vehicles. The job required him to lift his arms over his head all day to screw the brackets on.<\/p>\n<p>When he complained to management about the pain, Brooks said, the in-house clinic gave him heat packs or ice packs (a common practice also in <a href=\"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/tyson-osha-meatpacking-2\">meatpacking<\/a>) to evade mandatory reporting of injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). He had to seek medical care from an outside provider.<\/p>\n\n        \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>Carrots and Sticks<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>At the time, in 2014, the company didn\u2019t even offer light duty for injured workers \u2014 but once word spread around the plant that a unionization campaign was afoot, Brooks said, Hyundai used a mix of carrots and sticks to beat back the union drive, including offering light duty and bonuses. Brooks said the campaign never got enough signed authorization cards to file for a union election. He blames the demoralization that swept the plant in the wake of the UAW\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/labornotes.org\/2014\/07\/minority-union-volkswagen-now\">defeated drive<\/a> at Volkswagen in Chattanooga that year, combined with the company\u2019s threat to close down and relocate. Chattanooga VW workers tried and <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2019\/06\/why-the-uaw-lost-again-in-chattanooga\">lost again<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>But momentum is now on the organizing committee\u2019s side at Hyundai, as more people have come out in support of the union after the Big Three contract fight, Brooks said. \u201cEverything needs to change, from the safety inside the plant to the treatment of the people that are doing the work that makes the company run.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--center\"><q>Momentum is now on the organizing committee\u2019s side at Hyundai, as more people have come out in support of the union after the Big Three contract fight.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>At Rivian, Williams said workers\u2019 main workplace concerns revolve around safety and time off. Injuries include a crushed hand, a broken foot, a sliced ear, and broken ribs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-11-20\/rivian-rivn-employees-describe-safety-hazards-injuries-at-illinois-factory\">according<\/a> to complaints filed with OSHA. Workers attribute these injuries to the breakneck pace of production. There\u2019s worse to come. Just this month, the company raised its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2023\/11\/27\/rivian-r1t-ev-leasing.html\">production forecasts<\/a> for the full year by two thousand vehicles, to fifty-four thousand units.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, workers often put in twelve-hour days, seven days a week. But Williams said the company changed its scheduling to twelve-hour shifts, four days a week, in anticipation of Illinois\u2019s One Day Rest in Seven Act, where an employee is entitled to at least one day off in any consecutive seven-day period. The law went into effect in January 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Rivian has found other ways to monopolize workers\u2019 time, including reducing their sick hours from eighty to forty per year in January 2023. Meanwhile, salaried employees have unlimited paid vacations, according to a screenshot shared with us. Workers have also filed complaints with OSHA over a lack of fire exits.<\/p>\n\n        \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>The Alabama Discount<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>A challenge for the union is that auto manufacturing jobs pay well above other options in the low-wage states of the South. There\u2019s also less familiarity with unions, especially among younger workers. The unionization rate in Alabama, for example, is 7.2 percent. When the transplants located their manufacturing in the South, this factored into their calculation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the Alabama discount,\u201d said Jeremy Kimbrell, who earns $32 an hour after twenty-four years on the job at Mercedes-Benz. The German-based automaker manufactures its highly profitable luxury SUVs and Maybach GLS in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/16\/business\/energy-environment\/mercedes-battery-factory-alabama.html\">built<\/a> an electric battery plant last year in nearby Woodstock. The mammoth Mercedes plant, covered in gleaming metallic panels, was built in a pine forest in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of its initial investment, Alabama forked over $300 million in tax breaks and other subsidies to attract Mercedes-Benz to the state, claiming that the company would create 1,500 jobs and another fifteen thousand to seventeen thousand related jobs. \u201cThat amounts to $200,000 for each job \u2014 18 times what Tennessee paid for a Nissan plant in 1980, more than 7 times what Tennessee paid for the General Motors Saturn plant in 1985, 4 times what Kentucky paid for a Toyota plant in 1985 and 3 times what South Carolina paid for a BMW plant in 1992,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1996\/09\/01\/business\/o-governor-won-t-you-buy-me-a-mercedes-plant.html\">according<\/a> to a <em>New York Times<\/em> analysis from 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, the company has expanded its operations in the state. It employs 6,300 workers at two large body shops that feed into one paint shop, two assembly shops, and a logistics center, as well as a global service parts distribution center, a consolidation center, and the new EV battery plant.<\/p>\n<p>Kimbrell has been part of two foiled efforts to organize the plant. \u201cIn the past when we ran campaigns, I would tell people, we have to make a marginal argument that the Big Three are getting a little more money, they got pensions, and a little more benefits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you put it on paper, it was a marginal argument and a lot of people would say, \u2018Well, we\u2019re down here in Alabama. We\u2019re right-to-work and that\u2019s just to be expected.\u2019 Now the difference has got so much greater since the Big Three has increased its formula on profit-sharing, and got some really nice raises.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--left\"><q>With the UAW\u2019s contract settlement in the news Mercedes-Benz workers are beginning to come around to the benefit and power of a union.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>Kimbrell and his coworkers compare that to the eighty-seven-cent raise they got in October, which he called \u201ca slap in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs far as we beg for raises, we\u2019re not sitting down as equals at the negotiating table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>With the UAW\u2019s contract settlement in the news, Kimbrell said, his coworkers are beginning to come around to the benefit and power of a union. \u201cThey understand that the employer just doesn\u2019t respect us as workers,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re giving what they think they can get by with; they\u2019re not giving us our equal share.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the 2008 recession, workers earned overtime after eight hours in a day. Now it kicks in after forty hours in a week.<\/p>\n<p>They also used to get a $500 bonus on the Fourth of July. In the early 2000s, Mercedes-Benz launched what it calls \u201cteam share,\u201d which workers find opaque \u2014 its bonuses aren\u2019t pegged to company profits as in a profit-sharing formula. The company introduced a two-tier system, where workers doing the same job earn different pay and benefits starting in January 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The recently ratified Big Three agreements eliminate wage tiers almost entirely.<\/p>\n\n        \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2>\u201cYou Can Build Something Powerful\u201d<\/h2>\n        \n          <p>Favoritism and disrespect also rankle workers at the Mercedes plant. And benefits and conditions have deteriorated. Workers are on what is called a six-by-ten schedule \u2014 they work ten-hour shifts, six days in a row, on a three-team rotation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost places where I\u2019ve ever organized, even when the issue is pay, what really motivates workers is respect and dignity,\u201d said Gene Bruskin, who led a successful union campaign at a Smithfield pork processing plant in North Carolina in 2008. \u201cIf they feel disrespected, and there\u2019s no dignity on the job, people are unhappy. If you can tap into that deep-seated disrespect, allow that to sort of come out, then you can build something powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams said Rivian turned her into one of the key organizers of the union drive after watching management promote a team leader who she and her coworkers had reported for harassment. \u201cInstead of firing him, they promoted him to a manager and got him to a different shift, so that he was away from us troublemakers,\u201d she said. \u201cI got marked as pro-union.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Management began grilling her about her alleged union leadership role, peppering her with questions about the union drive and worker activities. \u201cAnd the funny thing was at that time period, I was union-neutral,\u201d she said. \u201cI figured if they\u2019re already gonna punish me for it, I might as well just go ahead and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n        \n           \n    \n\n   \n  <hr\/>\n  \n\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/12\/uaw-nonunion-factory-organizing-toyota-mercedes-hyundai-rivian\/\">Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe company knows that Toyota workers are watching,\u201d said United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain on November 3. \u201cAnd when the time comes, Toyota workers and all nonunion auto workers are going to be ready to stand up.\u201d That time has come \u2014 yesterday the UAW announced its plan, already in motion, to organize [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365760"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1365760"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370468,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365760\/revisions\/1370468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1365760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1365760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1365760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}