If the Teamsters’ contract campaign at UPS was a battle postponed, the UAW’s strike against the Auto bosses is the big industrial battle that many on the left and in the labor movement were hoping for this year. This is a real fight, not the shadowboxing on social media like so much of the Teamsters’ contract campaign was at UPS. The biggest strike in modern U.S. history at UPS didn’t materialize, despite the media hype and the hopes of the Left.
Everyone is aware that the outcome of the UAW’s battle will determine the fate of the once famed union, at what was known historically as the “Big Three” automakers: General Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler. However, the Big Three include the non-union Toyota, the second largest car manufacturer in the U.S., while Ford employs more UAW members than GM, formerly the largest, private-sector unionized employer in the United States, a position now held by UPS. These changes are just the tip of the iceberg that reflected the mammoth restructuring of the U.S. auto during the past four decades.
That same era saw the UAW, led by the old Administration Caucus (AC) pursue a strategy of contract concessions and “partnership” programs in fast-changing industry, that drained it of members and wed it even more closely to the Big Three. The 2009 restructuring of the nearly bankrupt Auto industry, reeling from the early stages of the 2008 Great Recession, by the Obama-Biden administration devastated the working conditions of unionized Auto workers destroying its credibility in big organizing drives in the U.S. South, where a large part of the modern industry is located. In 2017, I wrote:
The UAW has staggered from one defeat to the next for many years. Three years ago, the union got a punch in the gut when it was defeated in a recognition vote at Volkswagen (VW) in Tennessee. Friday’s defeat at Nissan was nothing less than a knockout punch ending for the foreseeable future any efforts by the UAW to organize the large, predominantly foreign-owned auto assembly plants in the South.
The defeats continued. In 2019, on the eve of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the UAW old guard called a strike against GM, and 50,000 workers hit the picket lines. But, after six weeks on strike union members ratified a contract that, with a little cosmetic tinkering, essentially left in place all that made working in the auto industry unbearable. Recently elected UAW President Shawn Fain on the UAWD slate, has broken with many of the suicidal policies pursued by his predecessors during the past four decades. The UAW has come alive. Here are the union’s bargaining goals posted on the UAW’s website:
ELIMINATE TIERS – It’s wrong to make any worker second class. The Teamsters ended tiers at UPS. We’re ending them at the Big Three.
BIG WAGE INCREASES – We’re demanding double-digit pay raises. Big Three CEOs saw their pay spike 40 percent on average over the last four years. We know our members are worth the same and more.
RESTORE COLA – Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) made sure the working class thrived for decades. It must be restored.
DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION FOR ALL WORKERS – All workers deserve the retirement security UAW members had for generations.
RE-ESTABLISH RETIREE MEDICAL BENEFITS – That’s just as essential as a solid pension.
RIGHT TO STRIKE OVER PLANT CLOSURES – The Big Three have closed 65 plants over the last 20 years. That’s devastated our hometowns. We must have the right to defend our communities.
WORKING FAMILY PROTECTION PROGRAM – This program keeps UAW members on the job and products in our plants. If companies try a shutdown, they’ll have to pay UAW members to do community service work.
Joe Allen is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service.
Source: CounterPunch
