Driving Change: VW Workers Shift Gears with UAW Unionization

Sometimes all you need to bring about change is a little push!

Volkswagen workers vote overwhelmingly to join the UAW… “This is the time; this is the place. Southern workers are ready to stand up and win a better life.”

There are roughly 150,000 workers at nonunion auto plants in the United States today, roughly the same number as at the American plants of the three unionized automakers – General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. If the union can win the right to represent workers across the broad swath of the nonunion auto plants, it could increase their leverage in future contract negotiations. — CNN

See how Shawn Faim and the UAW organized to demand fairness for American workers with these maps and infographics.

President Biden joins the UAW picket line

The UAW labor deals with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis through 2028, include a 25% increase in base wages, including an immediate 11% hike, and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33%, compounded with estimated cost-of-living adjustments to over $42 an hour. The deal also eliminated wage tiers in factories and reduced the time it takes to reach top wage from eight years to three years.

President Biden has backed the UAW in its quest to unionize other carmakers. The UAW released a video on social media, touting the “UAW Bump,” urging non-union workers to join the UAW. It has shifted its focus towards foreign-owned and Tesla auto plants. See the power of Union Power with this interactive map. Click on any image for details.

The UAW Strike expands to more GM and Stellantis locations.

Where are the new strike locations? What are UAW members demanding? How do you share protest details with workers, supporters and the media? How do you make it easy for workers to explain and amplify what they are striking for?

President Biden, the picketer-in-chief urged on the strikers in the push for better contracts

“There was a shift among US workers about what’s acceptable in terms of conditions to accept, about their own worth in the workplace, and about standing up for themselves when those two things don’t match up… At the core of many of these strikes are demands for liveable wages, job security, better working conditions and employee input…” — BBC.

Push for change

“The “Big Three” automakers have made $21 billion in the first six months of 2023. Corporate CEO pay went up 40%.
Corporations talk about how workers being treated fairly is going to drive up the cost of vehicles.
In the last four years, the cost of vehicles went up 30%; our wages went up 6%.
This boils down to one thing: It’s corporate greed. It’s not our contracts, it’s not our members’ demands.
Either you stand for a billionaire class where everybody else gets left behind, or you stand for the working class” — Shawn Fain

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglas

TakeAway: Organize to fight for your rights.

Deepak
DemLabs

Title image credit: VW’s ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach

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Reposted from Democracy Labs with Permission