This article was published in the June 2024 edition of UAWD’s newsletter, Members Voice. Read the full newsletter here.
by BEN SMITH, UAW Local 5287 — On the evening of Saturday, May 4 thousands of UAW workers at Daimler Truck North America received text messages announcing the successful ratification of a new four-year master agreement. The more than 7,300 workers at DTNA’s four big heavy truck and bus factories in North Carolina and at two DTNA parts distribution centers, one in Memphis and one outside of Atlanta, voted by a margin of 94.5 percent to approve the new contract.
The contract represents a major step forward for DTNA workers, who have experienced declining living standards and years of setbacks and concessions. Workers won, among other advancements, a minimum 25 percent increase in wages over four years. Our union defeated efforts by the company to increase workers’ healthcare costs. The union also forced the company to provide COLA. For the first time ever, UAW workers at DTNA will receive profit-sharing checks starting in 2025. Finally, against the steadfast opposition of the company, UAW workers at DTNA won an abolition of two-tier wages and an equalization of wage scales for workers across all of DTNA’s UAW-organized plants.
These gains are a direct result of our solidarity and strike readiness prior to the expiration of our previous contract. In the weeks preceding the April 26 expiration, workers had provided ample evidence that we were fully prepared to walk. Workers made T-shirts announcing our intention to “Strike If Provoked.” At Thomas Built Buses, workers wore shirts that proclaimed “TICK TOCK M**HA FU*ER!!” — a reference to a line delivered by Shawn Fain at the mass rally on April 2 at the Statesville union hall of UAW Local 3520. Meanwhile, numerous machine operators and tow motor drivers across DTNA posted cardboard signs at their workstations and on their forklifts proclaiming their strike readiness. Hundreds of workers at each plant across North Carolina wore red shirts every Wednesday to show their union pride and let the company know that we meant business. Workers also turned out in the hundreds for raucous practice strike events held at all of the plants on the weeks of April 14 and April 22.
Union workers across the plants also signed up their non-union coworkers in droves in preparation for the contract expiration and potential strike. On April 26, UAW Local 5287 at Thomas Built Buses announced on Facebook that we had achieved a membership rate of 92 percent — a record membership density previously unattained in our union’s entire 19-year existence.
The contract campaign at DTNA produced a frenzied level of excitement in the plants. The solidarity and strike readiness became a palpable feeling for workers up and down the line. We were ready to strike — and our supervisors and the company knew it.
This is an excerpt of a pamphlet on the UAW struggle at DTNA, reprinted with permission of the author. The full text is published through the Southern Workers Assembly.