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toyota
More Than 10K Workers Have Signed UAW Cards Since Big Three Wins
"These workers are standing up for themselves, for their families, and for their communities, and our union will have their back every step of the way," UAW president Shawn Fain said.
Jan 29, 2024
More than 10,000 U.S. autoworkers have recently signed union cards with the United Autoworkers Union, the UAW announced on Monday.
The news comes less than 90 days after UAW members ratified historic contracts with the Big Three automakers following their successful "Stand Up" strike.
"Our Stand Up movement has caught fire among America's autoworkers, far beyond the Big Three," UAW president Shawn Fain said in a statement. "These workers are standing up for themselves, for their families, and for their communities, and our union will have their back every step of the way."
"Seeing the contracts that they [were] able to get, it was just astounding."
When Fain announced the UAW's tentative deals with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, he said one of the union's major goals going forward would be to unionize more nonunion plants.
"When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won't just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Big Six," Fain said at the time.
After ratifying the contacts, the UAW announced a plan to unionize 150,000 employees working for 13 non-union carmakers. Since then, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, have gone public with their union campaigns. At Volkswagen, 2,000 out of 5,500 workers have signed union cards, Local 3 News reported. Washington Post labor reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley said on social media that the Mercedes campaign was also nearing majority support.
The current tally of more than 10,000 cards are divided across all 13 target companies, the UAW said. Gurley predicted that the union would hold elections at Volkswagen and Toyota before the end of the year.
More Perfect Union spoke to workers involved in the organizing drive at the world's largest Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky.
When the plant first opened in 1988, it provided high wages and good benefits, but compensation began to decline following the 2008 recession, despite the fact that Toyota's profits continued to rise. Employee Jeff Allen, who started working there nearly 30 years ago, said the job enabled him to buy a home and a new car early in his career. However, four-year employee Greg Williams said he could not afford to purchase a home and his fiance and two daughters had to rely on Medicaid for their healthcare.
"I totaled a car last week and I can't afford to replace it," Williams said.
Past union drives at Toyota have failed, but workers said they were newly energized by what the UAW won from the Big Three in 2023.
"Seeing the contracts that they [were] able to get, it was just astounding," Allen said. "And I'm like, you know, we could do that. We should do that."
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As UAW Ramps Up Organizing, Tesla Boosts Wages for US Factory Workers
"This is the latest sign that Elon Musk is scared of the UAW push to unionize all nonunion autoworkers across the country."
Jan 11, 2024
The electric vehicle maker Tesla has reportedly informed workers at its California plant that it is hiking wages for factory employees across the United States, becoming the latest nonunion car manufacturer to boost worker pay following the United Auto Workers' historic strike and contract victories late last year.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that all of Tesla's production associates, material handlers, and quality inspectors will receive a "market adjustment pay increase" to start 2024, according to a flyer that company management posted at its Fremont, California plant—which employs more than 20,000 workers.
The document did not make clear the size of the raise, Bloomberg noted.
Tesla is run by billionaire Elon Musk, who has been vocally hostile toward organized labor for years—a stance that has drawn scrutiny and rebukes from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In a 2018 post on Twitter, a platform he now owns and rebranded as X, Musk wrote that there is "nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union."
"But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?" he added. The NLRB said the post constituted an unlawful threat against workers considering exercising their right to organize.
After the UAW secured significant wage increases and other contract wins at the Big Three U.S. automakers following a six-week strike last year, the union launched what's been described as the largest organizing drive in modern U.S. history, targeting Volkswagen, Toyota, and other nonunion car makers. (Volkswagen and Toyota both raised workers' wages following the UAW's contract victories.)
On Wednesday, the union announced that more than 30% of the workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama have signed union cards.
"I feel like we're living to work when we should be working to live," said Moesha Chandler, an assembly team member at the Tuscaloosa factory. "I started as a temp making $17.50 an hour. I'm full-time now, but I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. If I have a shopping spree, it's for my work clothes, not fun clothes. If we had the union, we'd feel more protected, more at ease. We wouldn't feel like a gazelle to a lion."
Emboldened by its recent contract victories, UAW is also setting its sights on Tesla. Bloomberg reported in late October that the union has "committed to providing whatever resources are necessary" to organize Tesla's Fremont factory.
Workers at the plant have formed an organizing committee and have been discussing unionization with their fellow employees, according to Bloomberg.
Last week, dozens of Senate Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a letter to Musk and other auto executives raising concerns over their efforts to stifle union organizing.
"For example, according to employee accounts, Volkswagen managers confiscated and destroyed pro-union materials and Hyundai supervisors unlawfully banned pro-union materials in nonwork areas outside of normal working hours," the lawmakers wrote. "In addition, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla employed multiple illegal tactics aimed at stopping organizing efforts including online harassment, employee interrogations, and retaliatory firings."
"These retaliatory actions are hostile to workers' rights and must not be repeated if further organizing efforts are made by these companies' workers," the senators added. "We therefore urge you to commit to implementation of a neutrality agreement at your manufacturing plants."
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'UAW Bump': Toyota Announces Raises After Union Reaches Tentative Deal With Big Three
"They did it now because the company knows we're coming for them," UAW president Shawn Fain said in response to the news.
Nov 03, 2023
Days after the United Auto Workers announced tentative deals with the Big Three carmakers, Toyota confirmed this week that it would offer raises to its nonunion U.S. factory workers.
The Japanese automaker said Wednesday that hourly manufacturers at the top of the pay scale would see a 9% raise beginning January 1, Reuters reported. UAW president Shawn Fain, who is attempting to use the union's victory to bolster the wider labor movement, said that the timing of Toyota's announcement was no coincidence.
"Toyota isn't giving out raises out of the goodness of their heart," he said in a video statement shared by More Perfect Union on Friday. "Toyota 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're coming for them."
In the deals struck with Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors, the UAW secured a 25% pay raise over the life of the contracts. The tentative agreements brought an end to a historic six-week strike, as members return to work while they vote on whether or not to ratify the deals.
The UAW has negotiated for the three contracts to expire on April 30, 2028, a slightly longer lifespan than usual, according to Labor Notes. In a speech Sunday, Fain said part of the reason for the longer contracts was to give the labor movement time to build toward a potential strike on May Day 2028. Fain also said the UAW planned to spend the next four-and-a-half years organizing workers at nonunion plants owned by companies including Tesla, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota.
"When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won't just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Big Six," Fain said.
"UAW. That stands for, 'You are welcome.'"
On Monday, a Toyota employee at a plant in Alabama told Labor Notes that management had called workers into an emergency meeting offering to raise top pay to $32 an hour and to scale up workers to that level in four years instead of eight. Another employee at a Kentucky plant said the top rate for production workers there had been raised by $2.94 to $34.80 and skilled trades workers saw a $3.70 boost to $43.20.
Toyota confirmed it was offering raises to news outlets Wednesday. It also said it was halving the time needed to reach top pay across the board and expanding paid time off.
"We value our employees and their contributions, and we show it by offering robust compensation packages that we continually review to ensure that we remain competitive within the automotive industry," Chris Reynolds, Toyota Motor North America's executive vice president, said in a statement reported by Reuters.
Toyota's actions are in keeping with findings that a strong union movement benefits nonunion workers as well. During the 1950s, when union membership peaked at one-third of U.S. workers, income inequality was at its lowest since the Great Depression spike, according to figures shared by the Department of the Treasury. By 2022, only 10% of U.S. workers were in a union, and the top 1% took home almost 20% of total income. If private sector union membership increases by just 1%, nonunion workers see a 0.3% wage increase.
"Even though you're not yet members of our union, that pay raise Toyota's giving you is the UAW bump," Fain addressed Toyota workers in his statement. "UAW. That stands for, 'You are welcome.'"
"You are welcome to join our Stand Up movement," he continued. "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."
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