DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Big 3 Union Strike (and others?)

I think we had a thread on the writers guild strike and actors guild strike, but I don't recall seeing anything on UAW's ongoing strike, which is kinda surprising.

I was tempted to put this in the 'Everything' folder, but I'm just gonna skip to the end and put it here in PP since we all know how this is probably going to go. Still, I'd like to hear folks out on how they feel.

According to what I've been reading, it doesn't sound like there are any "good guys" in this showdown. The automakers got big concessions from UAW workers and now "owe them one", but UAW seems to be using that as a sorta blank check. UAW seems to be making good arguments but is looking to die on a hill of unreasonable demands. Early on, it was being said that a big reason for this approach is because their President, Shawn Fain, is trying to project strength to his membership.

Thoughts? Cards on the table... I'm a "unions = bad" guy, generally. But in this case I'm generally curious to hear what differing opinions think about it.

For me, the UAW gets the benefit of doubt for being the good guys because they do represent the blue collar workers.

That comes with limitations obviously, but im pretty much gonna side with the workers over the corporations because corporations aren’t people.

When it comes to negotiations, each side starts off with crazy demands and then compromise from there. I love what the UPS drivers got, and I hope the UAW gets similar results.

GM specifically needs to pony up. As far as I’m concerned, they are Goverment Motors, because they only exist due to the American people being forced to bail they asses out. So they should be paying their workers higher wages and better benefits.

For me, I’m in general support of unions. There are some specific unions that I dislike, but those specific unions doesn’t tank my support for unions as a whole.

Well said overall. I agree with you on the above, but does that equate to a 40% increase in wages across the board? As far as I've seen, they don't seem to be using this as a negotiating tactic, but rather want to die on this hill.

Definitely not 40%, for sure. They got the number from the CEO pay increases and packages, so I understand where the figure comes from. However that shouldn’t be the hill they wanna die on.

I can absolutely see 25% increase with expanded healthcare coverage and more paid time off. But at the end of the day, I’m not the one striking, or the one being underpaid and under appreciated. There certainly isn’t any hesitation for the executives giving themselves increases and bonuses all the time, so if they can pull off 40%, more power to them.

For me, if we want to buy American, then we have to pay Americans what they’re worth. As a consumer, I’ve started caring less about customer satisfaction and more about employee satisfaction, because employees being taken care of absolutely trickles down to the consumer.

What’s your thoughts on the compensation they’re asking for?

I think 40% is totally out of the question. I guess that comes down to whether you think that's what they're actually demanding or just using as a bargaining chip. I get the argument that CEO pay going up should go hand-in-hand with frontline pay, but trying to tie the 2 together doesn't pass basic smell test (least of which because CEO pay is way more convoluted and even that 40% number can be argued).

COLA shouldn't even need to be argued. Hope that's an auto inclusion in whatever deal they get.

This business about escalating wage increases for new and temp workers is something I'm generally against. Maybe it's just messaging, but I think "taking care of workers" gets confused a LOT with covering for the least common denominator. Good workers should be rewarded far more than they are because they drive value in an org. Accelerating paths to top pay doesn't do that, but rather it will reward bad workers more often than not. Coupling that with how hard it is to hold union workers accountable... you see my point.

I also think 40% is way out of line. But maybe not as far as people would think if you take everything into consideration. They made huge concessions in 2008. The economy was in shambles and they seemed to step up to the plate when it mattered most. A part of those concessions was the COLA. The cost of living raises that were being annualy based on inflation. People can say those shouldn't exist in the first place but all it actually does is keep workers pay from taking them backwards and was a part of their contract.

So if you take just the COLA increases from 2008 through 2023 that's a large portion of why they asking for such a huge increase. It's a lot more complicated than that but that alone helps explain a lot of it.

I don't really think they believe they will get a 40% raise. It's just a starting point. I believe the overall message is that not only the UAW, but a very large portion of Americans are getting sick of the huge disparity between the CEO's and wealthy of the world verses every day working people. It's always been lopsided and there is certainly a reasonable argument why a difference should exist. I don't believe that is an issue. But there's no reason that disparity between the two is growing at a never heard of rate and only worse and worse as it is now.

Shawn Fain is a badass and is the first prez to actually fight for these workers in ages. Fain was the first UAW president directly elected by the union's members. Former UAW President Gary Jones is in prison for embezzling. Former Vice Terry Dittes was a flat-out sell-out after plants were closed in 2019. The corps have had their way since the union jumped in their bed in 2008.

At GM, 'legacy' costs (healthcare and pensions) were shifted to the union responsibility in 2008 (after the crash). Union made a one time 8B payment to provide future funding but were able to remove that from their balance sheet. A lot of eyebrows were raised. Since then, it seems, the two have been partners in crime. Especially since none of the ancillary arguments and demands are met in contract after contract.

Yes, I have a vested interest. My wife and I are in our third city since GM closed in Lordstown. GM wasn't closed, it was "unallocated", fancy term for f#$%ing you out of contract language that would have required GM to provide work in the same region or offer early retirement / buyout (depending on age and service time). Previous prez shifted that to an arbitration process when signing last contract. We waited three years for arbitration to take place as the corp dragged it's feet. After a two week arbitration finally took place, the arbitrator declared that the case was "unarbitratable" because of language in the contract.

Thousands still waiting with lives on hold. We're lucky, I was selling my biz at the time anyway, kids are grown, house is paid for, we left together and considered it an adventure. Silly to walk away from 20 years of service (pension at 30) and Cadillac Health Care. Most of these situations are three dudes in an apartment working all the overtime they can to support their families at home. Missing their kids birthdays, graduations, etc. And worst of all spending four years waiting and waiting for a resolution, impossible to make life decisions, afraid to make decisions pin-the-tail-style that may eff up your life moving forward. Within two months in Missourri (the most common shipping point for most Lordstown workers) we had two suicides and a heart attack.

The media has painted (and jealous neighbors have perpetuated) auto workers as greedy and overpaid. They wreck their bodies everyday and haven't had a raise in 15 years. They gave up COLA (cost of living adjustments) in 2008 to 'preserve' their jobs when the corps cried broke. Since then the big three has made one quarter trillion in profits. Record profits every year.


Swish hit the nail on the head with the negotiation process. The workers don't even want a 32 hour work week... and nobody is getting a 40% raise... but that's all the media wants to talk about. So proud of my wife and her coworkers, literally taking a back seat and making no noise about their own struggle, fighting their asses off for the truly abused: the 'temporary' workers that the corp keeps in endless loopholes and refuse to make whole. Working 5+ years with that status: no pension, no accrued universal seniority, crap pay and limited health care... while the carrot of a better day is waved in front of their face. Fain has already ended that across the board. And told the whole community from get that that was priority #1.

I'm going to stop, or I'll write a book.

Bottom line: Fain shocked everybody when he said how he was going to handle this strike. Usually it's a cordial affair between all those on the take. They pick one of the three corps to strike and the three toy around with the union, throw them a bone or two, and starve out the striking workers with a signing bonus. Fain picked all three to strike (with limited plants), and has added plants as necessary depending on progress. When Ford was the only one working, he added parts plants from GM and Stellantis. Ford got cozy. He walked in a week later, asked them if they've made any progress, they said no. "Meeting lasted five minutes. Ford said they had nothing to offer, Fain said 'You just lost Kentucky'." Now their biggest, most profitable plant is out. He calls it a stand-up strike and announces them during shifts. Everybody just stands up and walks off the job.

Alright, I'll finish the book.

The biggest win so far is Fain securing all battery plants across the states as union shops. The Big Three were hiding behind "joint ventures" to avoid full pay and UAW status at all these plants.

GM closed Lordstown because they said they "couldn't cover that nut selling only 2000 cars per month"... after sabotaging the Cruze (best selling car, highest rated in it's class) with no incentives... and plant upgrades that resulted in parking lots full of repairs. They sold the plant (and backed the company financially) to a company that intended to sell 2000 trucks per year. 😯 Alas, that company couldn't make a truck that wouldn't set itself on fire. Now GM has a battery plant in Lordstown.

With the help of Fain, all these displaced workers should be able to return home and make batteries. Unfortunately, for GM, they won't have slave labor in the mines and the factories.

I’m for accelerating pay because - ethically - a CEO can’t increase their pay if the company hasn’t increased their profits. The least common denominator is still on your payroll, which means you give that person or group some level of responsibility within the organization in order to keep it profitable. And I absolutely believe the factory workers should get higher wages because their jobs are more demanding and dangerous.

One of the biggest issue in our society right now is that we pick and choose what is considered high skilled labor, and when it applies. Them UPS drivers do their thing in all the elements the planet has to offer. No, they aren’t running the company, but they are keeping that company operational, not the suits. So in order to buy American at high quality level, we need to pay our workers like the high quality labor they literally break their backs doing.

The way that clown on CNBC, Jim Cramer, was talking about the striker made me want to vomit.

This is the 'problem', or one of them, with unions. It is also why unions exist.

That great employee - shows up for work, does the job to a tee, great attitude? He gets the same as the guy that loafs and half butts it. Incentive goes down the drain.

I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I ran a business for nearly twenty years. The business model at GM has some serious flaws especially where labor is concerned. They churn the bottom (least common denominator works, but isn't entirely accurate) and end up with sour milk instead of creamy butter. There is high turnover among these ranks because there is (not anymore, thanks to Fain) no clear path to becoming a permanent employee. Some shops are notoriously bad, Spring Hill in TN is a model of greed and egregious behavior. There are temps there that work for years to become a 'real' employee. Six, seven days a week, no wiggle room to even take more than minimal sick days and vacation. Lower wages, lower benefits, no pension.

This high turnover creates plants that are always chasing their tails with production -- and basically blaming the 'employees' for the shortcoming. Contract after contract, the corps demand longer 'exemption periods', calendar blocks where they can basically work you to death. This creates even higher turnover, lower morale, more long term medical problems (these people are human robots), more absenteeism, etc, etc... It's a vicious circle of their own doing.

Most of these workers (including temps) just want to show up and do their jobs. That grand scheme is a fairy-tale exacerbated by the stupid labor practices at the bottom.


Where least common denominator comes into play is more to Arch's points. At the shops they call them the "loads". They all show up on a Friday before a holiday, because that's necessary to receive holiday pay for a Monday. Many of the true-blue will stand on the line and clap for them, as if it was some great sacrifice to show up for work. The elephant in the room is FMLA and the slippery slope that led to it being granted for even the most questionable circumstances... which allows these "loads" to basically work whenever they see fit.

That's pretty damning...

Interesting to see that regarding the plants. I don't see that much on the commercial side. On the side that I see, we had an aircraft manufacturer move their production facilities from Texas to South Carolina because it would be "cheaper" and because the Texas plant has a much higher priority production line now.

Lo and behold, in addition to the fact that COVID hit, the Great Resignation also hit. By their own admission, they were fighting with Chick-Fil-A to get people on the production line in South Carolina and they were at like 30% of their employment goal for waaaaayyyyy too long. This is a rather high-demand aircraft, too, especially these days. Needless to say, the people they could find had trouble learning and it required way too much help from Texas to stabilize everything, which then led to more people being involved than need-be, and the costs went up, and now the customers are way behind in the queue. Like 3-4 years behind, last I checked. I still don't think things are stabilized yet either.

But, hey, no unions I guess...

Ending all unions would have the lower 2/3rds working for slave wages in an instant.

And when an uneducated high school grad can at 18 walk into amazon and get $20 an hour, people will continue to struggle filling low end jobs. If they want employees to show up, be loyal, and work their butts off, then pay a living wage that allows them to have some damn dignity.

As far as I’m concerned, if things are so bad that normal working class people can’t enjoy their lives too; burn all the money machines to the ground and eat the rich.

I gotta really digest your last couple posts, so my response is going to be picking and choosing certain spots for now.

A smaller point you touched on that kinda struck me was media. In general, mainstream media leans left... but its coverage, IMO, isn't what I was expecting. They do highlight CEO pay in light of union demands, but I'm wondering if they're only showing part of the argument. The coverage has skewed kinda towards the corps, IMO.

You were involved in the Lordstown fiasco? Yikes. I probably know like 5% of the story there, but my understanding is that it's a perfect argument for the pro-union folks.

I see your chart/graphic, and I get it. IMO, UAW has done a good job of making the point about earlier concessions by the union during tough times, and then since then the companies have profited over the backdrop of skyrocketing CEO pay. What they have failed miserably at is tying that to demands that make sense, but this is probably just me showing how I don't know how these negotiations work.

Shawn agrees...

All three with an agreement now, ending a historic strike. Don't know when, it will probably take some time, but it looks like we will finally get to go home.
Thank you Shawn Fain, thank you workforce -- for having the balls to vote-in the "redneck from Indiana" when the propaganda machine told you it would be a big mistake. The corps fought tooth-and-nail to keep the battery plants out of the deal, Fain would not give up and kept escalating the strike.


GM, UAW reach tentative deal after weeks of contract negotiations

Jamie L. LaReau
Eric D. Lawrence
Detroit Free Press



General Motors and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative agreement, less than 48 hours after the union struck the automaker's Spring Hill Assembly plant in Tennessee, the Detroit Free Press has learned.

A person familiar with the agreement said the parties reached the deal in the early morning hours Monday after solving questions about the automaker's joint-venture battery plants. The person asked to not be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.

The UAW already has a tentative agreement that it reached with Ford Motor Co. last Wednesday. It reached a deal with Stellantis on Saturday that mirrors the one it has with Ford.

Despite marathon bargaining sessions with GM that ran into the early morning hours over the past few days, the two sides had been at a standstill, prompting the union to order the walkout at Spring Hill late Saturday and ratcheting up the pressure on GM to get a tentative agreement.

Midafternoon, GM put out a statement by CEO Mary Barra that read: “GM is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with the UAW that reflects the contributions of the team while enabling us to continue to invest in our future and provide good jobs in the U.S. We are looking forward to having everyone back to work across all of our operations, delivering great products for our customers, and winning as one team.”

The UAW also put out a statement confirming the deal saying: "Like the agreements with Ford and Stellantis, the GM agreement has turned record profits into a record contract. The deal includes gains valued at more than four times the gains from the union’s 2019 contract. It provides more in base wage increases than GM workers have received in the past 22 years."

The person familiar with the agreement said the main issue that was holding up a deal centered on how to include Ultium Cells LLC battery plants in a master labor contract between the UAW and GM. Ultium Cells is a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, so the legal language to allow for a master contract was complicated.

Ultimately, the agreement with GM is a breakthrough because it will allow for the joint-venture workforce to vote on unionizing future plants and then decide whether they want their own contract or to be part of the master contract. GM already is operating an Ultium Cells plant in northeast Ohio and it is building two more Ultium Cell plants: One in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and the other in Lansing, both expected to start operations within the next two years. GM will start building a fourth battery plant in northern Indiana with South Korean-based Samsung SDI next year and it will open in 2026.

"This is a home run by UAW and should be a boost for all workers," said Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University. "Either through organizing new unions or getting increases to help avoid a new union. It is also a huge improvement in economic activity for the communities with UAW facilities as that money is spent locally. (UAW President) Shawn Fain dramatically surpassed my expectations on what he and his team were able to accomplish."

On Wall Street, GM's stock price bounced higher and lower throughout the day as investors digested the news of higher labor costs but at least an end in sight for the strike.

"For GM, this rips the Band-Aid off and gets a deal done to put this nightmare in the rearview mirror," said Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. "Fain created a Broadway play and nightmare the last few months and caused massive disruption for GM and others. Barra needed to end this so GM can move on with its EV plans and, ultimately, this deal is less onerous than originally feared."

The tentative agreement between GM and the UAW will match the financials of the Ford deal, the person said. That includes a 25% wage increase across the life of the 4½-year contract, to expire on April 30, 2028. There is a reinstatement of the 2009 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) formula, the same profit-sharing formula reached with Ford, a three-year in-progression to the top wage and an end of tier wage scales by the end of the contract.

Like employees at GM's other facilities, those employed at the Ultium Cells plant in Warren, Ohio, near GM's former Lordstown Assembly plant, will automatically get an 11% increase in the first year of the contract, putting their pay at $35 an hour. By the end of the contract, GM workers will be close to $42 an hour.

This was confirmed by the UAW in its statement Monday afternoon: "The agreement grants 25% in base wage increases through April 2028, and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33% compounded with estimated COLA to over $42 an hour. The starting wage will increase by 70% compounded with estimated COLA, to over $30 an hour."

The agreement also will allow GM employees at certain plants a chance to transfer to either the battery plants or electric vehicle plants when there is an opening to secure jobs as GM transitions to an all-electric future, the person said.

The workers who will now be moved to the main production rate include parts distribution workers and those at GM Brownstown, the UAW said in its statement. For the first time since they organized in the 1990s, GM salaried workers will receive a general wage increase, equivalent to that of hourly workers, the UAW said, confirming that the deal also brings two key groups into the UAW GM Master Agreement: those at Ultium Cells and GM Subsystems LLC.

"Many thought GM would never put more money on the table for their hundreds of thousands of retirees," the UAW wrote in a statement. "In this agreement, however, GM has agreed to make five payments of $500 to current retirees and surviving spouses, the first such payments in over 15 years."

The strikers will return to work through the ratification process. A UAW National GM council vote is expected later this week and if it approves the agreement, it will then go to local leaders to discuss with general members, who will then vote to approve or reject the deal.

Fain outlined the top items in the Ford contract Sunday night saying he and union negotiators "wholeheartedly" endorse it for ratification. He urged people to go to www.uaw.org/ford2023 for more details on the offer. Local union leaders at Ford will review the contract terms with members in the coming days and Ford members will then vote on it.

President Joe Biden, who is the first president to walk a picket line when he came to GM's parts plant in Belleville last month in support of the UAW, was asked briefly by reporters on Air Force One on Monday about the UAW deal with GM and he said, “I think it’s great,” giving a thumbs-up. He added, "I’ll talk to you later,” suggesting he’ll have more to say.

Later, the White House put out a statement by Biden that read, "I applaud the UAW and General Motors for coming together after hard fought, good faith negotiations to reach a historic agreement to provide workers with the pay, benefits, and respect they deserve."

He commended the UAW and GM for agreeing to immediately bring back all of the GM workers who have been walking the picket line. Biden said the contract is "a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs while helping our most iconic American companies thrive. The final word on these tentative agreements will ultimately come from UAW members themselves in the days and weeks to come."

Some GM strikers were still reluctant to react to the news. Michael Martin, shop chairman for UAW Local 174, which represents workers at GM's Customer Care and Aftersales Plant in Ypsilanti Township, declined to comment to a Free Press reporter until he has time to review the details of the deal.

Lansing Delta Township employee Mike Yakim, who had worked at Lordstown Assembly in Ohio for 10 years, said he is interested in learning more about how transfers to the battery plants would work because his family still lives in the Lordstown area and he might want to get back there to work at Ultium Cells. He also wants to know what kind of retirement packages would be offered.

The pressure was intense on GM to get a tentative agreement with the UAW, especially with the elevated strike action at Spring Hill Assembly, labor experts said after Ford and Stellantis both got deals done.

A big motivation is cost. On Tuesday, GM said the union's targeted Stand Up Strike would be costing it about $200 million a week in lost production revenues going into the fourth quarter based on the plants that were down at that time. That figure did not include GM's Arlington Assembly plant in Texas where GM builds its profit-making big SUVs, which the UAW struck later that day. It also did not include strike action against Spring Hill Assembly. Stellantis has not yet released a cost figure, but labor experts estimate it would be similar to GM's cost.

"Now is the time where GM sees what the overall framework is with Ford and does it. Otherwise, they’re paying $200 million a week with the uncertainty of more plants going out," said Harley Shaiken, labor expert and professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley.

The agreement is an important victory for the UAW, Shaiken said. The Ultium Cells plant in Ohio is the only UAW battery factory running. The terms of the new contract at Ultium can act as a model and spur organizing at other Detroit Three battery plants, he said. It is also crucial to organizing the other nonunion battery plants.

"Organizing the battery plants could be key to organizing the other automakers," Shaiken said. "None of this will be easy but it opens new possibilities. In the wake of this stellar contract, the UAW can show a sharp contrast with wages and benefits at the nonunion automakers. They don’t have to say 'we promise' they can say 'we deliver.' ”

On the UAW side there was also pressure to wrap it up, Peter Berg, business professor at Michigan State University, said. The union's leaders know some members bear the burden more than others given that some have been on the picket lines since Sept. 15 when the strike started at GM's Wentzville Assembly plant in Missouri, Ford's Michigan Assembly plant and Stellantis’ Toledo North Assembly Complex. Fain has gradually expanded the strike since then to other facilities across the Detroit Three with about 45,000 of the 150,000 autoworkers on the picket line at the strike's peak.

"That starts to wear out" for those who've been on strike living off of $500 a week strike pay, Berg said. "At some point, the solidarity of the union slips away and that’s important to keep because they all have to vote on the agreement. You don’t want to get that kind of division.”

Then there are the auto parts suppliers who are anxious and watching this closely, Berg said. Many have had to lay off hundreds of workers after the plants they supply parts to went idle due to the strike.

Now that all three automakers have reached a tentative agreement, they will have to figure out how to live with the consequences, said Erik Gordon, a labor expert and business professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

"The companies might or might not get four years of labor peace, you never know given the hostility from UAW leadership, but they will have to live with significantly higher labor costs and less strategic flexibility during a difficult transition to EVs," Gordon said. "UAW workers got large compensation and benefit increases during the life of the agreements, but the younger ones might have fewer job opportunities in the long term."

That’s great news for you and your wife, Fate!

The fishing boat better be fabulous

Word of Caution,,, without the Rich, there is no investment. No investment means no businesses, no businesses means not jobs. Just keep that in the back of your mind. One can't succeed without the other. So t Shirts that say eat the rich are idiotic.

Was an eat the rich t shirt ever supposed to be seriously about eating the rich? It’s about redistribution of vast amounts of wealth. Smfh.

I've always said that the left is very poor at branding.

I always thought "Eat the Rich" was a Krokus thing.

For anyone that cares, we're witnessing a paradigm shift in the auto industry and it's workers' representation.


It all started here:

The members of the United Auto Workers have voted overwhelmingly to move to a direct voting system for choosing their union leadership—“one member, one vote.” With all votes counted as of December 2, direct elections had the support of 63.6 percent of voters. Dec 1, 2021

Fain's group pushed for that vote, and that's what led to his election. Decades of known corruption on the board was voted out in one fell swoop.

I don't think the corps expected this dude to turn the industry inside-out in seven months flat. But make no mistake, he was loud and clear that he was out to fight like someone stole his lunch money... from day one. His group is well constructed, well funded and very well organized, and they have larger ambitions.



Why the U.A.W.’s President Has Taken a Hard Line

Shawn Fain owes his rise within the United Automobile Workers to a group determined to make the union far more confrontational toward automakers.
Oct. 26, 2023


When Shawn Fain sought the presidency of the United Automobile Workers union last year, he ran on a platform that promised: “No corruption. No concessions. No tiers.”

That pledge encapsulated many members’ frustrations with years of union scandal and concessions to the three big Detroit automakers, including the creation of a lower tier of wages for newer employees. The platform helped propel Mr. Fain to the top job — where he has led a mounting wave of walkouts in recent weeks to demand more favorable contract terms.

But the platform largely predated Mr. Fain’s candidacy. It was devised by a group called Unite All Workers for Democracy, which was officially formed in 2020 as a caucus — essentially, a political party within the union.

The group set out to topple the ruling party, known as the Administration Caucus, which had run the union for more than 70 years. In 2022, Unite All Workers hashed out its party line, recruited candidates and ramped up a campaign operation to elect them.

When the dust settled, the slate had won half the seats on the union’s 14-member executive board, with Mr. Fain, previously a union staff member, as president. Unite All Workers’ role helps explain why the union has taken such a hard line with the automakers.

“We had a platform we ran on, and we’re trying to push that platform forward,” said Scott Houldieson, a founder of the group and a longtime Ford Motor worker in Chicago. “Shawn has been really upfront about what we’re trying to accomplish.”

The first fruits of that approach may have emerged Wednesday, when negotiators for the union and Ford agreed on terms for a new four-year contract, including a wage increase of roughly 25 percent over the four years, according to the union.

“We hit the companies to maximum effect,” Mr. Fain said in a Facebook livestream. The deal is subject to ratification by the company’s union workers.

Since at least the 1980s, U.A.W. members have formed groups to challenge the union’s top officials, or at least prod them to be more confrontational with automakers. The efforts took on added urgency in 2007, when the union accepted tiers as a way to stabilize the automakers’ financial footing. (General Motors and Chrysler later filed for bankruptcy anyway; Ford avoided it.)

But the Administration Caucus always held a trump card: The union leadership wasn’t elected directly by members. Rather, future leaders were effectively chosen by existing leaders, then approved by delegates to a convention every four years.

That changed after a corruption scandal in which two recent U.A.W. presidents were charged with embezzlement in 2020. As part of a consent decree with the federal government, members voted in a referendum on whether to directly elect union leaders. Unite All Workers, which was pressing for the change, waged an all-out campaign to persuade union members to support “one member one vote.”

When the initiative passed by nearly a two-to-one ratio, Unite All Workers, whose members paid an annual fee, was poised to become a kingmaker of sorts in the union’s 2022 elections. The group had a budget of over $100,000, two full-time staff members and hundreds of volunteer organizers.

“It was obvious that we could use the same infrastructure” of staff and volunteers to compete in the election, said Mike Cannon, a retired U.A.W. member who serves on the Unite All Workers steering committee. “The only question at that point was, were we going to have any candidates?”

Unite All Workers announced that anyone who wanted to join its campaign slate would have to fill out a detailed questionnaire and attend at least one meeting with its members.

The group wanted to ensure that the candidates it backed were committed to running the union with extensive input from rank-and-file members, and to driving a much harder bargain with employers. It wanted an end to wage tiers, which it said divided and demoralized workers, and a focus on organizing new members, especially among electric vehicle and battery workers.

Among those responding to the call was Mr. Fain, then a staff member in the union division responsible for Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram. During his interview process, Mr. Fain explained how, as a local official in Indiana in 2007, he had helped lead opposition to the two-tier wage structure the union had agreed to, and how he had argued for more favorable contract terms after joining the headquarters staff.

Some members of the group were skeptical that an employee of the old guard could be a reformer. But other U.A.W. dissidents vouched for him. “I knew the claims were legit,” said Martha Grevatt, a longtime Chrysler employee on the steering committee of Unite All Workers.

The group backed Mr. Fain and six other candidates for the union’s 14-member executive board, and all seven won.

As president, Mr. Fain has appointed critics of the former leadership as his top aides, including one who served on the Unite All Workers steering committee. Board members, including Mr. Fain, have attended some of the group’s monthly membership meetings and taken part in one of its WhatsApp chats.

Many of the group’s priorities became demands in the union’s contract negotiations, and Mr. Fain has indicated that he hopes to use momentum from the strike to organize nonunion companies like Tesla and Honda, a key objective of Unite All Workers.

But for all the connections between the group and the union leadership, they are not one and the same.

Some board members who ran on the Unite All Workers slate have at times taken positions in tension with the group’s priorities. In recent weeks, Margaret Mock, the union’s second-ranking official, has expressed concern to fellow board members about the walkout’s cost to the union’s budget. At a special board meeting last week, she offered a proposal intended to scale back spending on organizing during the strike, according to two people familiar with the meeting. The board set aside the proposal; Ms. Mock did not respond to a request for comment.

For its part, Unite All Workers considers itself accountable to rank-and-file members, not an extension of the leaders it helped elect. On a tentative deal with any of the three large automakers, Unite All Workers plans to appoint a task force to provide an assessment of the proposal to the union’s members. The group’s members will then decide whether to support it.

“I would say it’s not automatic that the caucus endorses” an agreement, said Andrew Bergman, who serves on the Unite All Workers steering committee.

Still, as a practical matter, the group is highly unlikely to oppose an agreement, since Mr. Fain has forcefully pressed for its core priorities.

“For years, we’ve been playing defense at every step, and we’ve been losing,” Mr. Fain said in a video streamed online on Friday, explaining why the strike would continue. “When we vote on a tentative agreement, it will be because your leadership and your council thinks we’ve gotten absolutely every dollar we can.” This week, the union expanded the strike to the largest U.S. factories at Stellantis and General Motors.

The approach has raised concerns among employers and business groups. John Drake, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the Detroit automakers could struggle to remain competitive after the strike, and that Mr. Fain appeared to be overreaching in extracting concessions.

“It feels like there’s not really a strategy here,” Mr. Drake said. “It’s like pain is the goal.”

The best analogy for Unite All Workers may be to a group called Brand New Congress, created by supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont independent, to help elect congressional candidates beginning in 2018.

Not long after the 2016 presidential election, Brand New Congress urged an obscure New York bartender and activist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to challenge a longtime incumbent in a Democratic congressional primary. A sister group provided her with training and campaign infrastructure. After she won, two people involved with the groups joined her staff.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has since become far more prominent than those early backers, and in principle she could take positions at odds with their progressive stands. But in practice, it’s unlikely. The worldview is embedded in her political identity.

Mr. Fain’s story is similar: a once-obscure progressive who was catapulted to a position of power by a group of insurgents and was determined to enact their shared principles once he got there. Except that, in backing him and his colleagues, Unite All Workers helped win not just a few legislative seats, but the reins of an entire union.

After Vail Kohnert-Yount, a Unite All Workers steering committee member, seconded Mr. Fain’s nomination for president at the union’s convention last year, he spoke to her about relying on government assistance as a new parent decades ago.

“I remember thinking this guy has not forgotten where he came from — he’s very much stayed that person,” Ms. Kohnert-Yount said. “We did our best to endorse a candidate we believed in.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/business/economy/uaw-shawn-fain-unite-all-workers.html

Toyota raises pay across the board in response to historic UAW deals

https://autos.yahoo.com/toyota-raises-pay-across-board-151200205.html

Sweet