The president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, Shawn Fain, had already announced that this was his idea, but now he has put it into practice. The center that brings together motor workers in the United States from companies such as General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the Big Three, wants to expand its radius of action. This Wednesday it launched an offensive to try to get the workers of more than a dozen companies in the sector to unionize, including the American Tesla, the Japanese Toyota and the European Volkswagen.
The success of the motor strike, the first to be carried out at the same time against the Big Three of Detroit, has given wings to the union. The new agreements, which imply salary increases of more than 30% and other concessions by the companies, have caused a chain reaction in plants of other manufacturers, which have also approved significant salary increases. Still, nonunion workers lag far behind those at UAW-affiliated plants in wages, benefits and on-the-job rights. Now, the UAW is openly appealing to more than 150,000 employees at other companies to join its ranks.
In the United States, it is common for the preparatory work for employees in a workplace to unionize to be done discreetly, to prevent the company from short-circuiting them. This time, however, the UAW is going with a calling ahead of it. “In an unprecedented move, motor workers at more than a dozen non-union automakers have announced simultaneous nationwide campaigns to join the UAW,” the union announced in a statement. “The organizing campaign will cover almost 150,000 motor workers from at least 13 automakers,” he added.
One of the strongest campaigns is at Toyota’s assembly plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, where 7,800 workers make the company’s Camry model and the highly profitable RAV 4 and Lexus ES, the union explains.
In a video, UAW President Shawn Fain details the common problems faced by all workers in the sector, which the union groups into the Big Three (Ford, GM, Stellantis), to the German Three (Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW), the Japanese and Korean Six (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru, Mazda), and the electric car sector (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Fain points out in his message the record profits of some of these companies, with the same strategy that he followed to demand improvements in agreements in the recent strike.
“To all the motor workers working without the benefits of a union: now it’s your turn,” Fain says in the video. “Since we started our strike Get up, The response from motor workers at non-union companies has been overwhelming. “Workers from all over the country, from the West to the Midwest and especially in the South, are reaching out to join our movement and the UAW (…) There is a better life out there,” Add.
The new campaign starts on the same day that General Motors has skyrocketed on the stock market after announcing a multimillion-dollar share buyback and an increase in dividends. The company has been optimistic about its ability to offset the wage increases agreed after the strike by cutting other fixed costs.
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