UAW prepares to organize Toyota and other non-union automakers – 11/02/2023 at 6:04 p.m.


by Joseph White and David Shepardson

United Auto Workers leaders signaled the next step in their campaign to capitalize on the union’s success in negotiations with the Detroit Three: launching organizing drives at Toyota 7203.T, Tesla

TSLA.O and other non-union U.S. auto plants.

“What could @Toyota workers gain if they joined the #StandUpUAW campaign?” Brian O. Shepherd, UAW organizing director, posted a comment on social media Wednesday after Toyota agreed to raise wages by 9 percent for U.S. workers and cut the required time in half to new recruits to achieve the highest pay rate.

Other foreign automakers are reviewing recent wage increases in the auto sector. Honda 7267.T told Reuters it was evaluating the UAW’s recent agreements with the three Detroit automakers and would remain competitive.

UAW President Shawn Fain is scheduled to deliver a video address at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on Thursday to outline details of the union’s new contract with Stellantis

STLAM.MI.

Mr. Fain used recent video speeches to telegraph the union’s determination to organize workers at Toyota, Tesla and other non-union U.S. automakers, using record wage increases secured in tentative deals with Stellantis, General Motors GM.N and Ford FN.

“One of our main goals coming out of this historic victory is to organize like we have never done before,” Mr. Fain said on Sunday. “When we return to the negotiating table in 2028, it will not just be with the big three, but with the big five or six

UAW Region 8 Director Tim Smith, whose territory covers many non-union auto plants in the southern United States, said workers at those plants have contacted the UAW.

“You can’t believe the calls coming in,” Mr Smith told Reuters.

UAW staff tally the calls, many of which come from Toyota’s massive assembly plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. The Toyota complex is not far from one of the UAW’s largest local unions, which represents Ford’s Kentucky Truck and Louisville Assembly plants.

Smith says it’s important for workers to consider the full range of wages and benefits, not just the wage rate. “We got them a raise,” he said. “If Toyota workers () call us, which they did, we will inform them and we will be there for them

For years, the UAW has tried in vain to organize non-union U.S. auto plants, most of which are built by Asian and European manufacturers in southern U.S. states with so-called “right-to-work” labor laws. “(right to work) makes it optional for workers to pay union dues.

Recently, the union tried and failed to gain enough support from workers at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., factory to hold a unionization vote. Tesla’s Fremont factory was formerly a UAW workshop when it was jointly owned by GM and Toyota and known as NUMMI.

“There’s nothing stopping the Tesla team at our factory from voting for the union. They could do it tomorrow if they wanted. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?” Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in 2018.

The UAW filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board following the tweet, and the NLRB ruled that the tweet violated labor laws prohibiting management threats against workers who support unionization. Earlier this year, a U.S. appeals court upheld the NLRB’s decision.

INCREASING COST DIFFERENCES

The UAW’s organizing efforts from 2015 to 2020 were hampered by a federal investigation into corruption in the UAW’s upper ranks.

Earlier this year, Mr. Fain won the UAW presidency on promises of sweeping reform.

Toyota’s wage increase earlier this week is part of a strategy the Japanese automaker and other non-union automakers are using to keep UAW organizers at bay.

Nonunion automakers kept hourly wages close to UAW rates at the three Detroit plants. But their labor costs are lower overall because they pay less in sickness and retirement benefits than union builders. They also use more temporary workers, who are paid less.

As a result, the average hourly labor cost at foreign automakers is $55 an hour, compared to $64 an hour under the old UAW contract, Ford sources estimated before the new contractual agreements. US labor costs at Tesla are estimated to be between $45 and $50.

The gaps will widen if UAW workers at the three Detroit plants ratify agreements that include raising wages for experienced workers by 25 percent, restoring cost-of-living allowances and raising wages for temporary workers up to ‘at 150%.



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