Solidarity from labor, U.S. public and foreign unions key to UAW position

 At deadline, UAW insiders say progress has been made in bargaining with each of Detroit’s Big Three, most notably with Stellantis (formerly Chrysler/Jeep), and the three-week strike of 25,000 autoworkers and 38 parts warehouses and 5 assembly plants may produce a just contract.

Of course, though reasonable observers may think a just agreement is a matter of fairness, fairness may mean less to the Big Three than power. Although separate companies, the three corporations share board members with other corporations with dubious labor relations. Interlocking interests include:

* Ford’s John C. May, on its board since 2017 and serving on its compensation and finance committees, is also chairman and CEO of Deere & Co., which forced UAW workers to strike in 2021 over wages, among other issues;

* At GM, CEO Mary Barra – top exec there for almost 10 years (making more than $28 million in compensation in 2022 and over $81 million from 2020 to 2022 – is also on the board at Walt Disney Co., which has had turbulent labor relations; and

* Stellantis’s chief operating officer in North America, Mark Stewart, who has a key role in bargaining with the UAW, used to be vice president of operations at the notorious union-busting Amazon.

Against such muscle, the rank and file nevertheless expects gains but increasingly may accept compromises.

 

Andrea Repasky, who works at a GM pickup-truck plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., told the Chicago Tribune that she doesn’t think the union will get everything back in one contract. But she’s hoping for progress.

 

“I would probably say that they’re going to have to maybe meet us halfway,” she said of GM. “Because we really gave up a lot to keep the company afloat.”

 

Meanwhile, the union’s creative strategy (from expanding targeted strikes to informal canvassing of select dealerships), demonstrations of solidarity from other unions (such as Communications Workers picketing a Reno GM distribution facility with UAW Local 2162), and impressive support from regular Americans all seems to be providing the extra strength the UAW needed.

 

In the run-up to the work stoppage, car-company executives claimed to have little recourse to boost pay because of the industry’s need to set aside money to invest in electric-vehicle plants. However, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis together plowed profits over the last contract into stock buybacks for Wall Street investors and multi-million-dollar annual pay and perks for corporate honchos.

 

“They want to scare the American people into thinking that autoworkers are the problem,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. ​“Corporate greed is the problem.

 

“They spent more money enriching shareholders in a year than they spent on us in the entirety of the last contract cycle,” he continued. “They could double our wages and not raise car prices – and still make billions of dollars in profit.”

 

Specifically, the Big Three in the last 10 years have “paid out nearly $66 billion in shareholder dividend payments and stock buybacks,” reported the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), not counting the $14 billion in dividends and buybacks shelled out so far this year. (Stock buybacks are when corporations use funds that could be applied toward investment in plants or in wages to, instead, artificially inflate the value of their stock.

 

“Just as in the 1930s,” Fain said, “we’re living in a time of stunning inequality throughout our society.”

Indeed, the union says autoworkers’ pay since 2008 has fallen 19.3%, according to EPI.

 

Fain in 2007 criticized the UAW concessions to bail out the industry, writing, “You might as well get a gun and shoot yourself in the head.”

 

Last month, he added, “We’re all fed up with living in a world that values profits over people. We’re all fed up with seeing the rich get richer while the rest of us just continue to scrape by. We’re all fed up with corporate greed and, together, we’re going to fight like hell to change it.”

 

His key words “all” and “together” apparently resonate with the public. Everyday Americans support the UAW, as shown in several polls from firms such as Morning Consult and Blue Rose Research: 58% back the strikers, including self-described conservatives and Trump voters. Just 17% oppose the strike.

 

Support is world-wide, too, evidenced by solidarity demonstrations by the Malaysian Transport Workers, South African Metalworkers, and the Mexican Independent Union of Goodyear Mexico Workers, which held a rally at GM’s office in Mexico City.

 

In this country, politicians’ actions reveal the stark differences between Democrats and Republicans. For instance, GOP presidential candidates increasingly show that they’re out of step with public opinion, denouncing the strike. Ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Halley (who while governor bragged about being a “union buster”) criticized the strike. And worse was U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, also of South Carolina, who on Sept. 21 in Iowa responded to a question about the strike by saying his philosophy is, “You strike, you’re fired.” That public remark provoked the UAW to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board for Scott (as an employer of office and campaign workers) advocating an illegal action since a strike is a “protected, concerted activity.”

 

Fain wasn’t surprised, commenting it was “just another example of how the employer class abuses the working class in America. Employers willfully violate labor law with little to no repercussions. Time for more stringent laws to protect workers' rights!" 

 

In contrast, on Sept. 22, Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth demonstrated with striking autoworkers in Naperville, and on Sept. 25 Sen. Dick Durbin followed suit, showing up at a GM site in Bolingbrook. The next day, President Biden joined a Michigan UAW picket line, commenting, “You guys, the UAW, have made a lot of sacrifices and gave up a lot. The companies were in trouble, but now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too. You deserve a significant raise.”

 

The day after that unprecedented show of support by a sitting U.S. President, former President Trump also appeared in Michigan, but at a non-union parts facility in a transparent attempt to appeal to that state’s voters who oppose the strike. (Trump won Michigan in 2016 by about 10,000 votes but lost the battleground state in 2020 by more than 154,000.)

 

Fain dismissed Trump’s presence as “pathetic irony, nothing more than a PR stunt [meant to] distract and gaslight” people.

 

Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber called out the hypocrisy: “Trump has a record. And that record was nothing short of catastrophic for workers, highlighting an open hostility especially to union families. He never cared about our jobs. Or our wages. Or our pensions and health care. Or even our safety. Trump just cared about making his rich buddies even richer at our expense.”

 

Such a partisan divide is only a few decades old.

 

In 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, campaigning for President, said, “Today in America unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.”