[The UAW was poised to call out the 5,000 members at GM’s
assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, but In the eleventh hour, GM
agreed to put battery manufacturing facilities for electric vehicles
into its national union contract. ]
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AUTO WORKERS SPARE BIG 3, WIN LANDMARK JUST TRANSITION AT GENERAL
MOTORS  
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Luis Feliz Leon
October 6, 2023
Labor Notes
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_ The UAW was poised to call out the 5,000 members at GM’s assembly
plant in Arlington, Texas, but In the eleventh hour, GM agreed to put
battery manufacturing facilities for electric vehicles into its
national union contract. _

Auto workers picketed at GM’s Wentzville Assembly Center in
Missouri October 5. GM has agreed to put battery manufacturing
facilities for electric vehicles into its national union contract. ,
UAW

 

On Facebook Live Friday afternoon, Auto Workers President Shawn Fain
symbolically awarded roses
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automakers General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford based on progress at
the negotiating table, a reference to the reality show “The
Bachelor.” The only thing missing was teary-eyed CEOs breathing a
sigh of relief as the UAW agreed not to widen its strike to more
factories for now.

The UAW was poised to tap 5,000 members at GM’s assembly plant in
Arlington, Texas, as part of its latest stand-up strike escalation.
These workers would have joined 25,000 already on strike at five
assembly plants and 38 parts distribution centers nationwide.

But in the eleventh hour, GM agreed to put battery manufacturing
facilities for electric vehicles into its national union contract.

“We were about to shut down GM’s largest money maker, in Arlington
Texas,” said Fain on Facebook Live. “Today, under threat of a
major financial hit, they leapfrogged the pack in terms of a just
transition. And here’s the punchline: Our strike is working. But
we’re not there yet.”

The companies have argued that the union can’t legally negotiate
over EV battery plants, but apparently the threat of a widening strike
changed GM’s horizons.

GM’s Arlington plant is considered
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by some analysts to be the most profitable manufacturing facility in
the world, which is why the union chose it as a target.

The significance of GM’s concession is even greater when you
consider that the Arlington plant plans to reduce production of SUVs
at the facility in favor of all-electric alternatives.

REFUSING OVERTIME

UAW Local 276 members in Arlington had been organizing to refuse
voluntary overtime, holding practice pickets that drew 80 to 100
workers, and finding creative ways to avoid doing the company any
favors.

The mammoth Arlington plant covers 250 acres. To cover that huge
expanse, UAW electricians and other skilled trades on their way to
repair breakdowns typically hop on bikes to cross the factory floor.
“Now even the electricians are refusing the overtime,” said
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production worker Tiffany Martin last week. “And I noticed a few of
them not using their bicycles to get to the breakdowns in the line.
They have been walking without any rush.”

Nicole Adams, an assembly line worker at the plant, said body shop
workers have refused to work through their breaks.

“We were ready on the first go-round,” said Adams. She credits
Local 276 President Keith Crowell for keeping members engaged with
weekly Facebook Live events modeled after Fain’s appearances.

Adams said her co-workers have traveled to nearby parts distribution
centers to stand in solidarity with fellow workers. Workers at GM and
Stellantis parts centers have been on strike since September 22.

“We understand the struggle,” Adams said. “This is my second
strike. My first strike pay was $250 a week, so I can imagine how
stressful it is to just be making a portion of your paycheck.” The
UAW raised strike pay to $500 a week earlier this year.

ROSE CEREMONY

The UAW’s rose ceremony ribbing reflects just one key dimension of
its Stand-Up Strike strategy
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public bargaining updates. The weekly live video updates and shifting
targets are a big departure from the union’s traditional approach,
where negotiators disclosed nothing while union members sat tight and
waited for a final result.

“Serious bargaining happens at the table, not in public,”
complained
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GM CEO Mary Barra in a September 29 statement. “The UAW is pitting
the companies against one another, but it’s a strategy that
ultimately only helps the nonunion competition.”

But nonunion auto workers appear to be drawing inspiration from the
UAW’s fight. “The response from auto workers at nonunion companies
has been overwhelming,” Fain told
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NBC News. “Hundreds of workers across the country, from the West to
the Midwest and especially the South, are reaching out to join our
movement and to join the UAW.”

At the 1,800-worker Toyota engine plant in Huntsville, Alabama, where
they finish the V6 and V8 engines for Tacoma and Tundra trucks and
Sequoia SUVs, worker Gerald Bernstein (a pseudonym) said his
co-workers talk in hushed tones about the strikes—and especially
about the UAW.

The strike is helping them make sense of their own workplace problems,
like speed-up, Bernstein said; Huntsville workers must complete their
assembly tasks in 46 seconds. Another top issue is mandatory overtime.

“Seeing the other workers go on strike and talking about the UAW, it
has sparked conversations about whether we should go on strike too,”
Bernstein said.

CLASS WAR THEATER

The companies responded to the union's strike strategy by dismissing
it as mere theatrics. “The CEOs are trying to trivialize our
strike,” said Fain. “They are saying it's just theatrics. And yes,
we are loud and proud about our fight. We want the public to
understand our fight, and to side with us, as poll after poll shows
they do.

“But it’s not about theatrics. It’s about power. The power we
have as working-class people. Theatrics don’t cause companies to
agree to double digit pay increases. Theatrics don’t result in the
right to strike over plant closures. Theatrics don’t win COLA.
Theatrics don’t result in GM battery cell manufacturing to be under
our national agreement.”

The union is aligning its key demands across all three
automakers—including a big wage boost, a shorter work week,
elimination of tiers, a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) tied to
inflation, protection from plant closures, conversion of temps to
permanent employees, and the restoration of retiree health care and
benefit-defined pensions to all workers.

Ford agreed to bump wages to 23 percent, up from the initial 9 percent
it first proposed. Ford and Stellantis have agreed to reinstate COLA,
with GM, according to Fain, not “far behind.”

In its latest offer, Ford has shortened the time it takes workers to
reach top pay from eight years to three, compared to four years at GM
and Stellantis. The UAW is still demanding that all workers receive
top pay after 90 days.

GM and Ford have agreed to end one of the many tiers
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in the current contracts, putting workers at certain parts plants back
on the same wage scale as assembly workers. The top rate for Big 3
assembly workers is currently around $32.

Temps got big pay bumps to $20 an hour at GM and Stellantis and $21 an
hour at Ford. All three companies have made commitments to convert
temps to permanent employees, but the details are still unclear on
where wages and conversions will land in ongoing negotiations.

The main sticking points remain post-retirement health care and
pensions. “For those members who never got a pension or
post-retirement healthcare, we are fighting like hell for real
retirement security. But the companies are fighting like hell to keep
our retirement uncertain and insecure,” said Fain.

Fain concluded his remarks with an emphasis on the results the
stand-up strike strategy has yielded so far. “Not everything is
about pulling out the bazooka,” he said, wearing a union T-shirt
that read, “Eat the rich.” “We’ve been very careful about how
we escalate this strike. We have designed this strategy to increase
pressure on the companies—not to hurt them for its own sake, but to
_move_ them. To get them to say ‘yes’ when they want to say
‘no.’

“Today is a perfect example of that. We know their pain points. We
know their money makers. We know the plants they really don’t want
to see struck. And they know we’ve got more cards left to play.”

Luis Feliz Leon [[link removed]] is a
staff writer and organizer with Labor [email protected]

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