This resolution was passed at the October 2024 Annual Membership Meeting via Zoom on October 13, 2024.
Resolution: UAWD Program for a Worker-led EV Transition
Submitted by Toly Rinberg (Local 22), Martha Grevatt (Local 869)
Whereas:
- As affirmed by the UAWD platform, the climate crisis is an existential issue facing our planet, harming the working class and vulnerable communities around the world, with the transportation sector being the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses in the US.
- The electric vehicle (EV) transition is unplanned and being led by corporations, with the backing of the federal government, under for-profit and market logic.
- Having the profit-oriented private sector in charge of the transition will result in crises at different scales for workers and communities: fires in battery plants, large layoffs, factory shutdowns, and potentially industry-wide economic collapse.
- For-profit production results in unnecessary and harmful outcomes, such as massive EV vehicles that greatly increase harm from mining, prolonged production of internal combustion vehicles, as well as a significantly reduced focus on public transit and other public goods.
- A worker-led EV transition program is needed to respond and prepare for these crises, to protect workers who build vehicles and communities across the supply chain and internationally, as well as to democratically align US production toward public goods that can address climate change and ensure prosperity for the working class.
- UAWD’s EV Committee (EVC) has developed a training for autoworkers on a Worker-led EV Transition, including an assessment of the current state of the EV transition, its effect on workers, as well as a political analysis on how workers can organize in response.
Be it resolved:
- UAWD shall adopt the EVC’s Program for a Worker-led EV Transition, which includes the following organizing approaches:
- Militant health and safety organizing in battery and EV plants;
- Striking over workplace closures and changes in production;
- Organizing for a shorter workweek, to improve the lives of workers and buffer shift reductions and production uncertainty;
- Contesting for worker control of factories, as well as democratic planning of production, if and when plants are shut down.
- UAWD shall aim to hold four Worker-led EV Transition Trainings for UAW manufacturing workers, based on the above program, to empower rank-and-file members with education and organizing tactics they can use at their shops. This initiative shall occur during a six month trial period.
- The EVC and the UAWD Organizing Committee (OC) will be responsible for co-creating and approving the educational training content, as well as the roll-out plan. These committees will aim to hold trainings in-person at locations near UAW workplaces and union halls, when possible, or may do so on Zoom.
- The Steering Committee (SC) shall assign point people from the SC for the project, and it shall allocate sufficient staff time to achieve this initiative.