“Half the time, it was hard to put two people together, but there…” Testifying for the specialized site labornotes.org, Todd Dunn, the president of local 862 of the UAW (United Auto Workers) could not believe it still no attendance at the meetings organized on August 24 and 25: 500 unionized auto workers in Louisville, Kentucky.
“What we are doing today is total commitment. It doesn’t matter if you’re at the bottom or in the middle. We are just one union,” says the union leader. The same show of force is being played out in Michigan (cradle of the automobile industry with its capital Detroit), Ohio and even Indiana, other states in the industrial Midwest.
The UAW and its 400,000 members (active and retired) have engaged in a standoff with the Big Three (Stellantis, Ford and General Motors), as negotiations over the terms of a new contract – the equivalent of a collective agreement – are at a standstill.
Who says super-profits says super-wage demands
Never had the union, born in the bloody labor battles of the 1930s, organized rallies to put pressure on the employers. And no doubt he had never made such radical demands: a 46% increase in wages over four years, a thirty-two hour week paid for forty, an increase in retirement pensions, an extension of social protection.
“I was told that our expectations were too high. You’re damn right, precisely because our members have very high expectations. Record profits ($21 billion in the first half – editor’s note) imply a record contract! launched Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW, during a rally in Warren, in the suburbs of Detroit.
“Our adherents are clearly fed up with living month after month, while the capitalist elite and the billionaire class continue to get rich like bandits,” he added in completely new rhetoric for a leader. from the UAW. To everyone’s surprise, this former electrician from a Chrysler factory in Indiana defeated outgoing president Ray Curry in the first direct election in union history in March.
In particular, he had promised to carry a more demanding voice during the renegotiation of contracts and to reconsider the concessions of the former management: after the crash of 2008-2009, the UAW had accepted the creation of a double salary scale. , new arrivals being hired at a lower salary than those already in place.
Shawn Fain’s first decision was to create a balance of power within the framework of the negotiations: no more discussions in the offices with the executives of the Big Three without mobilizing members through meetings. He was inspired by the strategy of the Teamsters union (deliverymen and drivers), led by a president, Sean M. O’Brien, elected against a former “managing” leadership, which won a victory at the end of July the renegotiation of the contract with UPS.
A few days before the August 1 deadline, set by the 1.3 million-strong union before going on strike, the management of the largest private postal company agreed to sign a “historic” contract: establishment of the minimum wage per hour at 21 dollars (against 13 dollars currently), general increase of 7.50 dollars per hour for all employees, creation of 7,500 full-time jobs.
Joe Biden has called for a deal
For the auto sector, September 14, the day the old contract expires, is marked on all calendars: 97% of UAW members voted to authorize the strike. A prospect that becomes more and more credible as the hourglass empties and the Big Three do not let go.
The subject took on national importance, to the point that President Joe Biden called for a deal to be struck, but failed to specify on what basis he believed it should be done.
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Bernie Sanders, now chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Health, Pensions and Education, was more clear: “I strongly support the UAW and its new leadership who are mobilizing and fighting back. (…) The Big Three cannot make huge profits, pay exorbitant salaries to their CEOs and ignore the needs of workers. »
As for the economic press – written and televised –, we are lost in conjectures in the face of this resurgent conflict, a Bloomberg TV columnist seeing poorly how “the strike can be avoided”.
2023-08-31 16:44:16
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