By the UAWD Communications Committee
There is just one day left before the UAW’s contracts with the Big Three automakers expire and tensions are higher between the two parties than they have been in years. UAWD members across the country are doing everything we can to organize fellow rank-and-file workers to support the contract campaign at our Locals and make sure we’re ready to strike. If you want to get involved, join us at our weekly Members’ Update on the Big Three Contract Fight, hosted by the UAWD Organizing Committee.
Our union — with our new President Shawn Fain, who UAWD led the campaign for, at the helm — has handled these negotiations much differently than previous iterations, opting for a much more public and confrontational approach. Meanwhile, the Detroit automakers are up to the same old tactics; claiming that despite raking in a combined $250,000,000,000 over the last decade while receiving billions in taxpayer funding, they just don’t have the financial means to offer workers anything more than the same paltry wage increases and profit sharing bonuses tied to the whims of company executives’ decision-making.
President Fain described the UAW’s Members’ Demands as “audacious” when he first presented them to the Big Three, and they definitely are if you compare them to what union leadership has typically sought during negotiations over the past few decades.
But they aren’t audacious when you look at what has gone on at the Big Three since the union made countless concessions in order to help the automakers during the Great Recession. Since that time, the Big Three have more than rebounded and are more profitable today than at any other time in their history. Workers, on the other hand, continue to fall further behind, as the automakers to this point have refused to reinstate the concessions workers made 15 years ago during what Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. called the companies’ “darkest hour.”
It’s interesting that Big Three executives claim they view their workers as “family” and lavish praise on us publicly for going above and beyond to help the companies, but when it comes time to actually reward us for our hard work and sacrifice, those same executives immediately cry broke and then go into overdrive attempting to convince the public just how overpaid and lazy workers are — i.e. “our workers just don’t know how good they have it.” Or they offer to throw a pizza party while working their employees into the ground.
Sounds like a pretty dysfunctional family.
One of the best things about the union’s transparency during these negotiations is that rank-and-file workers and the public are finally being told the truth about the automakers’ greed and are being presented with the actual statistics that support the UAW’s demands.
One of the most common claims parroted by the Big Three and the corporate media during negotiations is to claim that if worker wages and benefits increase, vehicle prices would have to increase as well. But as President Fain pointed out in a recent video released by the UAW, the Big Three have spent years price gouging consumers while worker wages remained stagnant. In the last four years alone, the Big Three raised the prices of vehicles on an average of 30% while worker wages increased just 6% during that same time.
The claim that worker wages have caused price increases is simply false. It’s malarkey. The Big Three continue to raise prices on consumers regardless.
Another popular talking point is that if workers win better conditions, the Big Three will be forced to close plants and outsource jobs to places with lower wages — either in the south or out of the country. One would be hard pressed to convince any rational individual that a company has any legitimate case to outsource jobs while making record profits. But that’s exactly what the Big Three have done. Consider this: in the last twenty years, the Big Three have closed a combined 62 plants, devastating community after community. And they continue to close them today.
The Stellantis Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois, closed earlier this year, is just the latest causality of the insatiable greed of the Detroit automakers. Company executives made the decision despite the fact that Stellantis raked in $17 billion in profit last year alone. As one Belvidere worker said: “We had a great group of people at that plant. We built quality cars; won numerous awards. We met our daily build numbers. We overcame everything the company threw at us, and they still shut us down.”
The Jeep Cherokee, the vehicle Belvidere produced, will now be built in Toluca, Mexico, where Stellantis can exploit Mexican labor for around $25 a day, per worker.
If Stellantis gets its way, not only will Belvidere not be allocated another product, but more work will be moved south of the border. UAW Vice President Rich Boyer recently informed union members that the company was threatening to move production of the Ram 1500 from Detroit to Mexico if the union didn’t accept another sub-par, one-sided contract.
It’s little wonder that President Fain referred to such insidious tactics by the company as “economic terrorism.”
The whipsawing strategy long used by the automakers to force workers in one country to compete against those in another in order to secure product has only worsened working conditions for all workers. It is one of the greatest threats to workers everywhere, and one in which UAWD is currently working to organize against through our Mexico and International Solidarity Committee. For too long, the UAW has bought into the idea that our goal should be to only protect American workers. We’ve got to think much bigger if we are going to stop corporations from pitting us against each other. We feel hopeful that under our new UAW leadership, we will finally begin taking on this massively important issue.
The truth is that there’s plenty of money for the auto companies to make big profits while still giving workers a truly equitable share. The Big Three have already amassed $21 billion in profits through the first six months of 2023. Unfortunately, that’s simply not the way corporate America thinks. It will never be enough for the auto barons. Because Stellantis made $17 billion in 2022, it will do whatever it takes to cut corners, price gouge consumers, and screw workers to try and squeeze out even more profits this year. That is, unless the UAW can stop them from doing so.
As autoworkers, we are fighting against this insane, never-ending race to the bottom. We’re fighting to protect our jobs, our families, and our communities. And we’re fighting to protect and improve the standard of living of workers in this country.
The Big Three’s hope is that the public will blame workers if there’s a strike on September 14 instead of rightfully blaming them for their greed.