United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain gestures in solidarity with striking workers during a rally at UAW Local 551 on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago.
John J. Kim | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
DETROIT – United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain wants to expand the union’s fight from Detroit automakers to the United States Tesla, Toyota engine and other non-union automakers operating in the US
The outspoken leader plans to take advantage of recording contracts recently won after contentious negotiations and US labor strikes General engines, Ford engine and Chrysler parent Stellar to assist in the union’s controversial organizing efforts elsewhere.
“We’ve created the threat of a good example, and now we’re going to build on that,” Fain said Thursday evening when discussing Stellantis’ preliminary agreement. “We simply went on strike like we have never struck before and won a historic contract. Now we are going to organize ourselves like we have never organized before.”
This would greatly benefit the union’s negotiating efforts and membership, which has nearly halved from about 700,000 members in 2001 to 383,000 early this year. UAW membership peaked at 1.5 million in 1979.
The UAW has previously failed to organize foreign-based automakers in the US. Most recently there are factories Volkswagen And Nissan engine did not meet the support needed to unite. The UAW has previously discussed organizing Tesla’s Fremont factory in California, but there has been little to no traction on these efforts.
It remains to be seen whether the recent efforts will gain traction among other automakers, but Fain has pledged to move beyond the ‘Big Three’ – Ford, GM and Stellantis – and expand into the ‘Big Five or Big Six’. The four-and-a-half-year contracts with the Detroit automakers expire in April 2028.
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The deals include 25% wage increases that would push top wages to more than $40 an hour, reinstating cost-of-living adjustments, enhanced profit-sharing payments and other significant wage, health care and workplace benefits. The contracts have yet to be ratified.
The union has already received significant interest from non-union automakers in light of the tentative agreements, Fain said. And last month, he rejected comments from Ford Chairman Bill Ford, who said the company and the union should work together to fight non-U.S. automakers.
“Workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda and others are not the enemy – they are the UAW members of the future,” Fain said.
Toyota
Fain has mainly focused on Toyota in recent days.
The automaker confirmed plans to increase wages at its U.S. factories earlier this week. The new rates would see manufacturing workers at top hourly rates in Kentucky receive about 9% raises to $34.80 per hour.
Fain on Thursday called that pay increase “the UAW bump,” joking that UAW stands for “U Are Welcome” to join the union movement.
UAW President Shawn Fain marches with UAW members through downtown Detroit after a rally in support of United Auto Workers members as they attack the Big Three automakers on September 15, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images
“Toyota is not giving raises out of the goodness of their hearts,” Fain said. “They might as well have raised wages a month ago or a year ago. They’ve done it now because the company knows we’re coming after them.”
Toyota, which has 49,000 hourly and salaried U.S. workers, said the “decision to join a union is ultimately made by our team members.”
“By providing honest, two-way communication about what is happening in the company, we strive to promote positive morale, which ultimately leads to increased productivity,” the company said in an emailed statement Friday. “Working together has provided our team members with a history of stable employment and income.”
Tesla
The UAW has so far failed to gain enough support to force an organizing vote at Tesla facilities, including its Fremont, California, factory, where the union previously represented workers when it was a joint venture between GM and Toyota.
Fain told Bloomberg News on Thursday that he believes organizing Tesla and hiring CEO Elon Musk is “doable.”
“We can beat anyone,” Fain told Bloomberg. “It will be up to the people who work for him to decide whether they want their fair share… or whether they want him to fly into space themselves at their expense.”
Still, Musk has historically clashed with union advocates.
While some workers tried to form a union at the company’s Fremont factory in 2017 and 2018, Tesla paid a consulting firm called MWW PR to monitor workers in a Facebook group and on social media more broadly, as CNBC previously reported.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, arrives for the inaugural AI Insight Forum at the Russell Building on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, September 13, 2023.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Tesla also terminated the employment of a union activist named Richard Ortiz in 2017. And in 2018, Musk said in a tweet: “There’s nothing stopping the Tesla team at our car factory from voting for a union. Could do that if they wanted to. But why pay for a union?” pay dues and give up stock options for nothing?”
The tweet violated federal labor laws, the National Labor Relations Board later found.
An administrative court ordered Tesla to reinstate Ortiz and have Musk delete his tweet, which it concluded had jeopardized workers’ compensation. Tesla appealed the ruling and Musk’s offensive post remains on the social media platform that Musk now owns, renamed X and serves as CTO and executive chairman.
In February, another group of organizers filed a complaint with the NLRB, alleging that Tesla laid off more than 30 workers at its Buffalo factory in retaliation for a union drive there by Tesla Workers United. Tesla called the employees’ allegations false and said 4% of the Autopilot data labeling team in Buffalo had been terminated due to performance issues.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, sued Tesla in September for widespread racial harassment of Black employees and retaliation against those who spoke out.
And at the end of October, just over 100 Tesla service workers in Sweden, members of the industrial labor group IF Metall, walked off their jobs due to a brief strike. Hundreds of mechanics and technicians at non-Tesla stores also agreed not to repair the EV makers’ cars in solidarity. However, Tesla has so far refused to negotiate with IF Metall.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.