by Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes, April 5 https://labornotes.org/2024/04/southern-auto-workers-are-rising
Auto workers are gearing up to smash through anti-union bulwarks in Alabama and Tennessee. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the only Volkswagen factory in the world without a union, votes will be counted April 19 as 4,300 workers who make the Atlas SUV and the ID.4 electric vehicle decide whether to join the United Auto Workers. . . . Next up will be Mercedes. Workers in Vance, Alabama, at one of only two nonunion Mercedes-Benz factories on the planet, filed for an election today; a vote is expected soon after the VW vote. . . . More than 10,000 workers at 13 non-union carmakers across two dozen facilities nationwide have signed union cards since last November, when the UAW announced an ambitious goal to organize 150,000 workers at major non-union auto and battery plants. That roughly mirrors the UAW’s existing Big 3 membership. . . . In previous organizing drives, the UAW presented itself as the best way to collaborate for win-win solutions—even promising in advance not to go for “uncompetitive” wages. But what worker needs a union to help kiss the boss’s ass? Kimbrell prefers Fain’s approach: openly adversarial. “People see that, and they’re like, yeah, we don’t want to hold hands,” he said. “We’ll tell them, ‘What you’re doing is wrong. We don’t want that, we want this. And we’re the workers, so yeah, we’re not your friends.’” # # # -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29823): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29823 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105379327/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
