The revitalized union is coming after Toyota, Tesla, and other non-union carmakers.
Labor scholars say the success of the United Auto Workers’ recent strike against the so-called Big Three automakers will have “huge implications” for auto workers nationwide, including those at General Motors’ highly profitable plant in Arlington and at non-union carmakers as well.
Fain said the “stand-up strike” method deployed by his union was a turning point toward bringing power back to the working class. Many of the victories included in the contracts represent a return to workers of benefits they’d lost over the last several decades, especially around the time of the Great Recession, when the union accepted concessions to keep the car companies from going under during the nation’s financial crisis.
“We have a tremendous amount of calls coming in” from workers looking for UAW to come to their shop, said UAW Region 8 director Tim Smith, who represents the union in Texas and other Southern states. What is happening with the Big Three, he said, “could change so many people’s lives.” For instance, workers atoperated by the three companies will now come under the companies’ main contracts with the UAW or otherwise become more open to union organizing.
Givan said the tier system and the loss of cost-of-living increases were “two of the biggest pieces the union gave up to help save the companies” over a decade ago. The system means some workers were receiving “hardly a living wage,” she said. “We want to work 40 hours a week just like everyone else,” said one GM detail worker in Arlington, who asked that his name not be used. He said six-day work weeks are routine at the GM plant and that the company can demand even seven-day work weeks for up to 90 days.
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