The landmark agreement between the UAW auto union and GM is facing a major hurdle

Despite the advances made by the UAW, their labor 

agreements must be confirmed by their members before 

they can be implemented.

• James Ochoa
• Nov 10, 2023 11:26 AM EST

The United Auto Workers, led by Shawn Fain, have landed landmark agreements with the big three Detroit automakers that have ended their strike.

However, such agreements must be approved by the union membership before they are put into place and implemented. 

According to a report by Reuters, UAW members who are General Motors  (GM) - Get Free Report factory workers at the Flint assembly plant in Michigan have narrowly voted against a proposed contract with the manufacturer.

A Facebook post on Thursday evening by the UAW Local 598 chapter said that its members voted against the deal by a narrow 51.8%

Workers at other plants are expected to vote on the same agreement within the next few weeks. 

The Flint assembly plant assembles the popular Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, a profitable product that has been a sales leader for GM.


A Chevrolet Silverado pace truck drives through turn seven on a parade lap before the NTT IndyCar Series GMR Grand Prix on May 13 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in Indianapolis. (Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The plant's vote comes after the Big Three automakers and the UAW reached tentative deals over the last few weeks to end a costly strike following marathon negotiations.

The agreement with GM, which covers 46,000 workers at the Detroit auto giant, grants a 25% increase in starting wage through April 2028 and will continually increase the top wage by 33% to over $42 an hour, along with cost-of-living adjustments (COLA).More Labor

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Electric cars and trucks have been a primary focus for Detroit's car manufacturers, as it tries to dethrone the current market leader Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report. Amidst the strike, General Motors scaled back its electric car manufacturing expansion by postponing the opening of a $4 billion electric truck plant in Michigan.

UAW workers at GM's Flint plant narrowly vote against new labor deal


Fri, November 10, 2023 
By Shivansh Tiwary

(Reuters) -United Auto Workers (UAW) union members at General Motors' Flint assembly plant in Michigan have narrowly voted against a proposed contract with the U.S. automaker, the local chapter said.

The vote signals that approval of the deal, which is set to raise costs significantly for GM, is not guaranteed.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, the UAW Local 598 said 51.8% of votes cast were against the proposed deal.

GM said it would not comment during the ratification process.

Shares of the company, which has 4,746 workers at the Flint plant, fell about 1.2% in morning trade to hit a more than three-year low of $26.30.

Workers at the company's other plants are expected to vote on the agreement in the coming weeks.

Of the total votes cast at the company's various facilities so far, about 58% of workers voted in favor of the deal, according to a UAW vote tracker.

Workers are yet to vote at some of GM's major plants including the Arlington assembly plant in Texas and Fort Wayne truck plant in Indiana, which produce some of the company's most profitable vehicles.

Union workers are voting on contracts from each of Chrysler-owner Stellantis, General Motors and Ford Motor, after the first coordinated strike against Detroit's Big Three automakers.

The vote at the Flint assembly plant, which manufactures the Silverado heavy duty pickup truck, comes after the Detroit Three automakers and the UAW reached tentative deals over the last few weeks to end a costly strike following marathon negotiations.

The UAW's new agreement, which covers 46,000 workers overall at GM, grants a 25% increase in base wage through April 2028 and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33% compounded with estimated cost-of-living adjustments to over $42 an hour.

"The chances of GM putting more than another 15 cents on the table are low," said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor.

The historic deal with the Detroit Three has prompted rival automakers with a non-unionized workforce to offer hikes.

Japan's Honda Motor said on Friday it was implementing an 11% pay increase for production workers at its U.S. facilities from January.

Subaru Corp of Indiana Automotive also said it planned to provide its U.S. associates a "pre-holiday announcement" as part of its biannual process.

Separately, the UAW said Volvo Group-owned Mack Trucks has informed the union that the Oct. 1 offer to striking workers was its "last, best and final".

Voting on the offer has been tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, the union said.

(Reporting by Nathan Gomes and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Krishna Chandra Eluri)

Striking UAW will vote again on rejected Mack Trucks offer

Alan Adler
Thu, November 9, 2023

Striking United Auto Workers will vote a second time on a rejected master contract at Mack Trucks. (Photo: Alan Adler/FreightWaves)

Striking United Auto Workers at Mack Trucks will vote again next week on the company’s last, best and final offer of a master contract, essentially unchanged from the deal workers rejected.

Mack told the union that the 20% compound wage increases offered over five years was its final offer in a new master agreement. The sides agreed on new terms specific to four local agreements during the latest round of negotiations.

About 3,900 workers in Pennsylvania, Florida and Maryland rejected that offer by 73% in voting on Oct. 8. Workers will vote for a second time on Nov. 15 and 16 depending on location.

Mack’s main assembly plant near Allentown, Pennsylvania, has been idle since the walkout began Oct. 9. Workers at five other Volvo Group facilities, including an engine plant in Hagerstown, Maryland, also are on strike. Mack is part of Volvo Group North America.
Strike has minimal impact on Volvo Trucks operations

Unlike a UAW strike at Mack four years ago, production continued largely unaffected at the Volvo Trucks North America (VTNA) plant in Dublin, Virginia. VTNA took one day of strike-related downtime on Oct. 30.

A separate six-year master agreement reached in 2021 following a five-week UAW strike governs the VTNA New River Valley complex..



“The tentative agreement employees will vote on includes the strong wage and benefit package the company offered at the master contract level and tentatively agreed to by the parties on Oct. 1, as well as a number of revised terms negotiated with the UAW on local agreements impacting LVO [Lehigh Valley Operations], Hagerstown, Baltimore and Jacksonville,” Mack said in a statement Wednesday.

About 45% of the total workforce is in progression, meaning they started at a lower wage and would grow into the top rate across five years, down from six years in the last contract. For that group of workers across all sites, the average wage increase over five years would be 55%, with an immediate wage increase of than 20%, Volvo Group spokesman John Mies said in an email Thursday.

General wage increases for production workers in various steps of the progression at Mack Trucks’ Lehigh Valley Operations plant in Pennsylvania under the company’s last, final and best offer to the United Auto Workers, who have been on strike for a month. (Source: Mack Trucks/Volvo Group North America)

Workers at Mack’s medium-duty truck plant in Roanoke, Virginia, are not represented by a union.
Mack says Oct. 1 offer is last, best and final

In a statement on its website, the UAW called for the revote after the company said the Oct. 1 agreement was its last, best and final offer. That deal was endorsed by local and international UAW leadership as a “record contract” for the heavy truck industry.

Mack has taken a hard line since the tentative agreement was rejected. It called new economic demands by the UAW unreasonable and said the union was turning its back on months of negotiations that led to the deal.

Tentative UAW deals with the Detroit Three automakers may have helped bring the Mack-UAW talks to a head. Autoworkers will get a compound 25% increase over 4 ½ years, signing bonuses and other gains.

At a Nov. 2 rally, union leaders at Mack said their demand for restoration of annual cost of living adjustments (COLA) mirrored those included in the automaker agreements.

The UAW gave up COLA in 2009 during the Great Recession to help General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, then part of Fiat, survive. The 2009 COLA formula is part of the master agreements being voted on by the UAW’s 146,000 autoworkers.

It is unclear how Mack will proceed if the UAW rejects the master agreement a second time. UAW-represented workers at VTNA turned down three tentative agreements in 2021 before the company imposed the terms of its last offer.

Editor’s note: Updates with addition details of Mack Trucks’ contract offer up for revote by UAW-represented workers on Nov. 15-16.

Autoworkers hesitate on new contracts despite 'record' pay increases

Marley Jay
Updated Fri, November 10, 2023 

Michael Swensen


Workers at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors are weighing in on the new contracts proposed by their union and the Big Three — and a few of them seem unsatisfied with what they're being offered.

UAW Local 598, which represents workers and retirees at a General Motors truck plant in Flint, Michigan, said Thursday that 51.8% of its members voted to reject the deal. Production workers in the chapter narrowly opposed the new contract, while a smaller group of skilled workers strongly supported it.

Another group of GM employees, UAW Local 659, said Tuesday that production workers at the Flint engine operations plant also voted against the deal by a 52% to 48% margin. Other parts of the chapter were strongly in favor, however.

The proposed contracts were negotiated after members of the UAW went on strike for more than six weeks. If majorities at each automaker approve, the pacts will last through April 30, 2028. Union members will get an 11% initial wage increase and a total pay increase of 25% over the course of the 4½ year deal. The new contracts also reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, let workers reach top wages in three years instead of eight, and protect their right to strike over plant closures.

Both the United Auto Workers and the carmakers described the deals as "record" contracts based on those pay increases.

While some union chapters have posted their vote totals on social media, others have not disclosed them, and the UAW will only make the final results public. So it's hard to know what the negative votes say about the odds the contracts will be approved.

The UAW did not respond to a request for comment.

Compared to GM, Ford employees seem a bit more enthusiastic. Ford was the first of the Big Three to reach an agreement with the UAW, and its members are scheduled to finish voting on the proposed contact Nov. 17.

The first group of Ford employees to weigh in was Local 900 at the Michigan assembly plant, which was the first Ford plant to go on strike. The UAW said 82% of those members voted to ratify the contract, with more than 3,000 'yes' votes.

Ford workers are heading to the polls. What we know about Ford, UAW tentative contract
Olivia Evans, Louisville Courier Journal
Fri, November 10, 2023 

A little more than two weeks after Ford reached a tentative agreement with the UAW, the union representing 57,000 Ford workers nationwide, some 12,000 workers in Louisville, are headed to the polls on Nov. 12 to vote on the contract.

"Every UAW member at Ford will get a vote on this deal, and the majority rules," Shawn Fain, the International President of the UAW, previously said.

Besides his members-first approach, Fain implemented a never-before-seen strike strategy to the negotiations, which he coined a "stand up" strike, at all three of the Detroit Three automakers — Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis.

Ford experienced a 41-day strike by the UAW after failing to negotiate a new contract prior to the contract expiration on Sept. 14 at 11:59 p.m. The Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville was called to "stand up" and strike on Oct. 11 and held the line for two weeks before the tentative agreement was reached on Oct. 25.

Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862, which represents Louisville's 12,000 Ford workers at KTP and the Louisville Assembly Plant, said the contract is viewed as a major win for the workers.

"We've got a contract that's the best contract we've seen in two decades," Dunn told the Courier Journal.

But whether it passes is still up for a vote. The Louisville-based Ford plants, KTP and LAP, represent roughly 21% of all Ford UAW voting members.

"I think we have a strong input ... a strong influence on the agreement," Dunn said.

UAW Local 862 President Todd Dunn. Aug. 14, 2023

In the past, Local 862 has been a tricky union local for the UAW to get to ratify a contract. In 2019, Local 862 voted to not ratify the tentative agreement. The skilled trades workers between LAP and KTP voted 49% against the tentative agreement and the production employees voted 67% against it, Dunn shared.

That same year, the Ford contract passed nationally with 56% of voters in favor of the contract.

The tentative agreement also failed in 2015 and 2011 locally, Dunn said.

Despite the recent history of not passing a tentative agreement at Local 862, Dunn said he is more optimistic this year. The union, under Fain who was elected earlier this year, took a more grassroots approach with collective bargaining.

"Shawn Fain had a strategy, he was a little bit more on the aggressive side than other folks ... but overall, I think it was very strategic," Dunn said.

The Local 862 votes should be tallied and released by Monday. After the votes from all UAW locals representing Ford workers come in, the UAW will announce if the contract has been ratified. Dunn said if the contract is not ratified by members, UAW national negotiators would head back to the bargaining table with Ford and renegotiate its membership concerns.

Here's what the new contract could mean for Ford workers in Louisville:
Will Louisville Ford workers see a pay raise in the tentative agreement?

Ford employees vote during a strike authorization vote Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 at the UAW Local 862 union hall on Chamberlain Lane in Louisville, Ky. The strike authorization would allow the union to strike after its contract expires on Sept. 14, 2023 if deemed necessary.The UAW Local 862 represents more than 12,000 workers at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant and the Louisville Assembly Plant. Aug. 21, 2023More

The UAW made wages one of its key priorities during negotiations, originally calling for a 40% wage increase. While the union did not win an increase that high, in the tentative agreement workers will see an immediate 11% wage increase upon ratification and a subsequent 3-5% wage increase each October through 2027.

By the end of this contract life in 2028, skilled trades workers will be making $50.57 an hour and production workers will make $42.60 at the top wage rate. Local 862 in Louisville represents 1,104 skilled trades workers and 10,509 production workers at KTP and LAP, according to data shared with the Courier Journal by Local 862.

On top of the wage increase, the progression from entry rate to top wage rate has been reduced from eight years to three years, allowing workers to quickly amass more than $40 per hour. For workers who have currently passed the three-year mark but have not reached the top wage under the 2019 contract, their pay will immediately bump to $35.58 hourly after ratification.

All UAW workers can expect to receive a signing bonus once the contract is ratified. Hourly workers will receive $5,000 and salaried workers, which are the roughly 30 nurses between KTP and LAP, will get $10,000. The signing bonuses will be paid in the second pay period following the ratification of the contract.

"In the past, you've seen significantly higher ratification bonuses, just due to the fact is there was less content, and that's one thing we always said, I would rather have content over a one-time bonus," Dunn said.
How do medical benefits change for Ford workers in the tentative agreement?

Aside from wages and signing bonuses, Dunn shared that the new healthcare updates in the tentative agreement provide workers and their families with better medical care. Previously, Ford workers in Louisville had the option of Humana or Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, but with Humana exiting the commercial insurance business, roughly 8,000 workers are now being switched over to Blue Cross Blue Shield, which has some employees represented by the UAW.

Dunn said all workers will now receive additional medical care such as a medical travel benefit, preventative screening coverage, chiropractic care and fertility benefits.

"That was a major concern of mine, especially with all the young families having no fertility coverage ... I understand what our members were going through and that was one of the major concerns when we were creating our resolutions," said Dunn.
Is COLA restored in the tentative UAW, Ford contract?

Another sticking point during negotiations this year was cost-of-living adjustments. In 2009, COLA was removed from the National Master Agreement and the union aggressively wanted to see it reinstated. The tentative agreement brings COLA back and provides a total value of $8,800 per worker on average through the life of the four-year contract.

For workers who are eligible to retire by Dec. 1, 2024, the UAW and Ford have tentatively agreed to a gross pre-tax lump sum separation buyout of $50,000 per retiree, in the 2019 contract the buyout was $60,000. Dunn said he has at least 1,700 workers who would qualify for this buyout.

More: How new UAW Ford agreement makes Louisville 'center of the universe' for electric vehicles

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Ford workers in Louisville vote on UAW contract. Here's what we know

LABOR'S PREZ

Here’s why the UAW saving this Illinois auto plant is a ‘gigantic deal’

Chris Isidore, CNN
Fri, November 10, 2023 

General Motors, Stellantis and Ford have closed dozens of US plants since the beginning of this century. Only a handful have ever been brought back to life. Now the United Auto Workers union can add one more.

That’s why US President Joe Biden attended a UAW rally in Belvidere, Illinois, Thursday, along with UAW President Shawn Fain.

Illinois is not a political battleground state like Michigan or Ohio, which have far more auto plants. But Belvidere is ground zero for the union’s successful fight to stop plant closings in its just completed tentative labor agreements with Stellatis, GM and Ford.

It is the site of an assembly plant that was closed in February, leaving 1,200 hourly workers either without a job or forced to transfer to another plant far away from the rural Illinois city of 25,000, about 70 miles west of Chicago.

But that plant is now due to reopen as an assembly plant in 2027, building a new midsize pickup truck. In the meantime, it will start making batteries for electric vehicles and serve as a parts depot for the company. Workers who have been laid off who can’t get one of those jobs or don’t want to move away can get partial pay in the meantime that, together with unemployment benefits, can get them more than 70% of their normal pay.

“It’s definitely unusual that a plant is brought back to life,” said Jeff Schuster, global head of automotive for GlobalData, an industry consultant. The union often will try to bring plants back during negotiations, but typically with limited success.

And that success in the just-completed labor negotiations during the strike at Stellantis is why Fain and Biden both came to Belvidere on Thursday.

“Nobody thought we could accomplish what we accomplished. Re-open Belvidere? Forget it,” Fain said during remarks Thursday.

Biden recalled two massive auto plants that GM and Chrysler used to operate in his home state of Delaware, and what happened when they closed .

President Joe Biden speaks to the United Auto Workers union in Belvidere, Illinois, on Thursday. - Evan Vucci/AP

“When they shut down, people lost their sense of pride. Neighborhoods were in real trouble. People wonder if they’re going to stick around, what was going to happen to their families,” he said. “So this opening Belvidere again is a gigantic deal as far as I’m concerned.”
‘Willing to tear apart families’

It’s a big deal for Dawn Sims, a 24-year veteran of the plant and a third-generation Chrysler worker in Belvidere, She spoke at the event with Fain and Biden, talking about the stress she and co-workers were put under when Stellantis announced plans to close the plant.

“They were willing to tear apart families, they were willing to tear apart communities,” she said.

She said that with both a son and daughter in high school, she felt she couldn’t relocate her whole family.

“To keep my job, it would mean I’d have to leave my family,” she said. “These were the tough choices we were all having to make.”

Part of the union’s success was its unusual strike strategy. The union struck all three companies together for the first time in its history, but started with strikes at only one assembly plant per company, which gave it the opportunity to add to the scope of the strike six times as it repeatedly turned up the pressure at the bargaining table.

“It was a very different tactic that seemed to work,” said Schuster.

But what really helped were record profits and/or near-record profits at the automakers. Schuster said it’s much tougher to save jobs and stop plant closings when companies are struggling, losing billions and running short on cash, or even just treading water.

The union said that the three unionized automakers, the traditional Big Three, have closed 65 plants and facilities so far this century. Some of those jobs were lost to outsourcing, either to suppliers or in some cases foreign plants, and some to automation.

Strong sales help save jobs

But much of the loss occurred due to lost market share. In 1999, data from Edmunds shows the traditional Big Three had total US sales of 11.5 million vehicles and 68% of the market. By last year, that had fallen by 51%, with US sales of just 5.7 million vehicles and only 41% of the market.

But with strong demand for cars helping fuel record car prices, the unions were in a strong position. “Record profits, record contracts” became one of its slogans on the picket lines.

Belvidere isn’t the first plant brought back to life. But it’s one of few.

In the past, just getting an automaker to drop future plans to shut down a plant was considered a win for the union.

That’s what happened with a plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, operated by Stellantis predecessor Chrysler, which appeared slated for closing as part of its 2009 bankruptcy, and then again by 2012. But the plant has continued to operate to this day.

And it’s what happened with the last GM assembly plant in Detroit, its Hamtramck Assembly plant, that as part of the 2019 labor deal was closed in early 2020 and re-tooled to make electric pickups, reopening in November 2021.

Among the few plants that literally came back from the dead were GM assembly plants that were closed during the 2009 bankruptcy, including one in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and one in Orion Township, Michigan, that were revived as part of the 2011 labor deal.

But other plants that the union tried to save, including GM’s massive assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and Baltimore have been permanently shuttered.

Biden meets with UAW president, calls for union deals across auto industry

MAX ZAHN
Thu, November 9, 2023 

President Joe Biden called for unionization across the auto industry and embraced the broader labor movement in an address to members of the United Auto Workers at a car plant in Illinois on Thursday.

Biden, who wore a red T-shirt emblazoned with the UAW logo, hailed the union workers for carrying out a 46-day strike against the automakers that ended with tentative deals last month.

"These deals are game-changers not only for UAW workers but for all workers in America," said Biden, who in September became the first U.S. president to join workers on a picket line when he visited a UAW protest in Michigan.

"I want to thank you for your commitment to solidarity," he told the workers on Thursday. "You're changing the face of the country economically."

The tentative deals, which must be ratified by union members at each of the respective carmakers, resolved an at-times contentious work stoppage that thrust UAW President Shawn Fain into the national spotlight and drew overwhelming support in public polls.

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Tentative agreements struck with Ford, Stellantis and GM each called for a roughly 25% raise over four years, as well as significant improvements on pensions and the right to protest the closure of plants.

The event arrives roughly a year before the 2024 presidential election, which polls suggest is likely to be a repeat of the 2020 contest between Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The economy and inflation are top issues for Americans, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.

Republicans are more likely to be trusted to do a better job on these two issues, according to the poll: Americans trust Republicans to do a better job handling the economy over Democrats (35%-25%). On inflation, they trust Republicans to do a better job (35%-21%).

As part of its tentative contract ending the strike, Stellantis agreed to reopen the assembly plant in Belvidere, where Biden spoke on Thursday.

MORE: Credit card debt has reached a record high. Here's what it means for the economy.

Roughly 1,300 workers at the plant lost their jobs when the factory idled in February. Ultimately, the deal to reopen the plant could create 3,000 jobs in Belvidere.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden addresses striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union at a picket line outside a General Motors Service Parts Operations plant in Belleville, Michigan, on September 26, 2023. 

(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

During contract negotiations, Biden said he called Stellantis officials to emphasize the importance of the Belvidere facility. "I got on the phone and let them know personally," the president said.

Biden commended Fain for his leadership throughout the six-week strike. "Shawn, you've done one hell of a job, pal," Biden said.

"When I called Shawn to congratulate him on this historic deal with the Big 3 automakers, he told me the credit goes to the workers," Biden added. "It doesn't hurt to have a leader with a backbone like a ramrod."

Speaking on Thursday before Biden's remarks, Fain shared his embrace. He praised Biden for the role his administration played in negotiations between the union and the carmakers. Fain and Biden met privately before speaking at the rally.

"I'm honored to be here today with the president of the United States," Fain said on Thursday. "I'm grateful for the work shown by the White House throughout this fight."

"This is a team effort," Fain added. "They went to work with us and the companies."

Biden sought to focus on the economy with the friendly crowd at the auto plant but faced a protester at the outset of the remarks who called on the White House to back a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

In recent days, Biden has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a three-day humanitarian pause but has declined to back a cease-fire. Israel agreed to daily four-hour pauses in the fighting, the White House said on Thursday.

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"President Biden, you need to call for a cease-fire in Gaza," a crowd member yelled.

A chorus of boos rose up from the audience in response to the protest, but Biden called on the crowd to remain calm. "Let her go," he said. "It's OK."

Chants from the crowd then drowned out the protest. "We love Joe," they said. "We love Joe."

President Joe Biden highlights UAW strike gains in visit to Illinois plant re-opening

Doug Cunningham & Patrick Hilsman
Thu, November 9, 2023

President Joe Biden praised union workers Thursday at an event to mark the re-opening of the Belvidere, Ill., auto plant and the success of the recent UAW contract.

 Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI

Nov. 9 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden joined UAW President Shawn Fain and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Thursday to mark the re-opening of the Belvidere, Ill., auto plant and the UAW contract that won historic gains for auto workers.

The White House said Biden's trip to Illinois was meant to highlight his working-family agenda, commitment to creating good-paying union jobs and the UAW strike win that brings thousands of jobs back to the Belvidere plant.

"When ... in Belvidere, Illinois, he's going to mark the reopening of that assembly plant," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing Wednesday. "This reopening will create thousands of jobs, highlight the president's commitment to rehiring and retooling the EV and EV battery jobs in the same communities where auto jobs have created good-paying union jobs for decades."


Biden spoke at the Community Building Complex in Belvidere on Thursday afternoon before a scheduled stop in Chicago for a campaign reception. Biden was scheduled to return to the White House Thursday evening.

There, the president recounted his personal connections to the auto industry in his comments.

President Joe Biden praised the work of unions as he joined UAW President Shawn Fain and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Thursday to mark the re-opening of the Belvidere, Ill., auto plant and the recent UAW contract that won historic gains for auto workers. 

Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI

"My state of Delaware -- a little state -- because we've got a small population, had the highest percentage of UAW workers in the United States of America. We had the largest GM plant outside of Detroit," Biden said. "But here's the deal, I got raised on automobiles. My dad ran ... an automobile agency for a long time."

He also recounted childhood memories of how auto plant closures can affect workers and communities.

President Joe Biden praised the efforts of UAW President Shawn Fain, who was in attendance. Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI

"I grew up in neighborhoods where I know what it's like when a plant closes down. The largest General Motors plant, as I said; the largest Chrysler plant -- when they shut down, people lost their sense of pride. Neighborhoods were in real trouble. People wondered whether they were going to stick around, what would going to happen to their families," Biden said.

Biden also touted his long history with the UAW.

The UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers won major gains for UAW members, including a 25% total wage increase over the four-year life of the new contract.

 File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

"To the members of the UAW -- you're tough, tough, tough as they come. The first outfit to ever endorse me as a 29-year-old kid when I was running for the United States Senate and have been with me my whole career," Biden said.

The president also praised UAW President Shawn Fain.

President Joe Biden praised the work of unions as he joined UAW President Shawn Fain and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Thursday to mark the re-opening of the Belvidere, Ill., auto plant and the recent UAW contract that won historic gains for auto workers. 

Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI

"You know, the fact is, this starts at the top, though, with Shawn Fain. Shawn, you've done one hell of a job, pal," Biden said.

The UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers won major gains for UAW members, including a 25% total wage increase over the four-year life of the new contract.

During the six-week strike, Biden joined the UAW GM picket line at Willow Run, Mich., just outside of Detroit Sept. 26.

Using a bullhorn, Biden told the striking workers that they saved the automobile industry in 2008 when they made concessions as some of the automakers faced bankruptcy.

"You made a lot of sacrifices and gave up a lot," Biden said on the picket line. "The companies were in trouble. Now they are doing incredibly well and -- guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too. You deserve a significant raise and other benefits. Let's get back what we lost."

At one point during Thursday's event in Illinois, Biden's comments were interrupted by an Israeli war protester, who shouted, "President Biden, you need to call for a ceasefire in Gaza!" The crowd booed, and Biden continued with his comments.

President Biden visits Belvidere to celebrate UAW victory in restarting plant, saving ‘the beating heart’ of a small auto town

Robert Channick, Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune
Thu, November 9, 2023 





Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

President Joe Biden came to Belvidere on Thursday to celebrate the restarting of the idled Stellantis plant and tout his role in supporting the United Auto Workers, whose strike negotiations made it possible.

In a speech before a jubilant crowd of union autoworkers at the Boone County community center, Biden, who became the first sitting president to join a picket line last month in Michigan, donned a red UAW/Belvidere T-shirt in a show of solidarity before delivering his address.

“The Belvidere Assembly Plant was the beating heart of this community for nearly six decades, just like it was back in Delaware, where I was raised,” Biden said. “Eight months ago, the plant idled indefinitely, 1,200 of you lost jobs. When that happens, the community loses more than jobs. They lose their sense of pride, lose their sense of being, lose their sense of dignity.”

Biden said getting Stellantis to reopen and reinvest in the Belvidere plant was a priority for him and the UAW.

Last week, Stellantis committed to investing nearly $5 billion to retool the plant for production of a new midsize truck, build an adjacent electric vehicle battery plant and create a “megahub” parts distribution center. Part of a tentative agreement to end a six-week strike by the UAW against the Big Three automakers, the plan is expected to bring thousands of jobs back to Belvidere.

The president’s visit marked the end of a long, tough year and the beginning of a new era for the 60-year-old auto plant and the small river city near Rockford. In February, Stellantis “indefinitely” idled the Belvidere Assembly Plant and laid off its last 1,200 workers after halting production of the Jeep Cherokee amid dwindling sales.

Many people in Belvidere feared it would shift from being an auto town to a ghost town.

One month later, a devastating tornado with 100 mph winds ripped through Belvidere on the last day of March, tearing the roof off the historic Apollo Theater during a packed heavy metal concert, killing one person and injuring 40, according to the National Weather Service.

The skies were much brighter Thursday for President Biden’s visit, both meteorologically and economically.

Hundreds of Belvidere auto plant workers lined up for more than a block on a closed-off downtown street Thursday morning in front of the Boone County community center ahead of the president’s remarks, basking in the sunshine and the surreal moment that few had imagined was coming.

Near the front of the long line was Steve Walters, 61, of Caledonia, a 30-year veteran of the Belvidere plant who was laid off when it shut down in February. At the time, Walters thought indefinitely idled meant forever.

“It looked pretty bleak to me,” Walters said. “I thought they were going to close the plant, I really did. Then this surprised me — they’re going to keep it open.”

A tool and die maker, Walters came to Belvidere in the mid ’90s, when the plant began building the Dodge Neon. He stayed around through the ups and downs of ownership changes, retooling and new models. And when the plant closed, he put his faith in the union and political leaders from the statehouse to the White House who pledged to reopen it.

Walters was far from alone. On Thursday, workers in red shirts took to a stage under video screens that read “President Joe Biden, Auto Plant Reopened” and “Standing With Workers,” as they waited for his arrival. Many sang along when the piped-in music began playing “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond.

“Good times never seemed so good,” the workers sang with extra gusto.

Speakers included Gov. J.B. Pritzker, UAW President Shawn Fain and Local 1268 President Matt Frantzen. But they were the opening acts for Biden, whose speech made a town of 25,000 the center of a growing union movement, a presidential campaign and the media universe, at least for a few hours.

Biden was greeted with rousing applause. But even as he spoke to a friendly and receptive crowd about the importance of autoworkers and unions to the domestic economy, he couldn’t escape international tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.

Only moments into his address, a protester interrupted the president’s speech by shouting, “President Biden, you need to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.”

The protester was escorted out as the crowd booed. Afterward, the left-wing anti-war group CODEPINK claimed credit for the disruption.

The president displayed more aggressiveness and intensity in calling out and comparing himself with his predecessor and potential general election rival, Donald Trump, than he has in the past.

Biden reminded the audience he was the first-ever president to walk a picket line with striking UAW members in Belleville, Michigan, on Sept. 26, while Trump on the same day went to a nonunion battery manufacturing plant near Detroit, where he said electric vehicle manufacturing would destroy the U.S. auto industry and kill jobs.

“He said if America invests in electric vehicles, it would drive down wages. It would destroy jobs, it would spell the end of the American automobile industry. Well, like almost everything else he’s said, he’s wrong. You have proved him wrong,” Biden said to cheers.

Biden also derided Trump by name for his negative portrayal of the country.

But the president’s focus was on the UAW and the idled auto plant. Biden recounted a June meeting in Chicago with Frantzen, a 30-year veteran of the Belvidere Assembly Plant, who became president of UAW Local 1268 only three weeks earlier.

“He told me how critical it was to get that plant up and online again,” Biden said. “So, I told my team, ‘Make Stellantis know Belvidere is a priority.’ And I got on the phone and let them know personally I thought it was a priority.”

When Biden’s speech wrapped up, the autoworkers poured into the bright sunshine outside the center, reveling in the moment.

Tonya Glover, 50, an electrician apprentice from Rockford, had worked at the Belvidere Assembly Plant since transferring from a Delaware auto plant in 2009. While she was on the assembly line for years, her new role kept her at the plant until September, where she helped tear down production equipment.

“We were actually taking out robots and we were decommissioning the plant,” Glover said. “It was so sad to see. We dismantled everything.”

Glover is now set to be rehired to prep the plant for the new products headed to Belvidere.

Jannette Blake, 54, of Rockford, had been on the assembly line at the Belvidere for 24 years before she was laid off in February. A transfer from Syracuse, Blake wasn’t ready to retire, and didn’t want to move again after just purchasing a house.

“So I just hung in there,” Blake said. “And this happened. It’s amazing.”

On Thursday, Blake shared the stage with union leaders and President Biden. Afterward, she stayed to watch the president’s motorcade, reflecting on a remarkable afternoon in Belvidere and the broader implications of plant restarting.

“It’s going to be great for the community, families are going to be back together,” Blake said. “And I just got to see Joe Biden, the president of the United States. I am just in such shock, that I was literally in the building with the president and so close. That was just awesome.”

The Belvidere plant opened under the Chrysler banner in 1965, with a white Plymouth Fury II sedan the first vehicle to roll off the line. Over the years, the plant was retooled several times, and made everything from the Dodge Neon to the Chrysler New Yorker. The plant became the exclusive home for the Jeep Cherokee in 2017, with more than 5,000 workers on three shifts building the SUV at its peak.

But demand for the plant’s sole product waned, and downsizing accelerated under new owner Stellantis, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot of France in January 2021.

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a Democrat whose 11th Congressional District includes Belvidere, was part of the multilayered political effort to get a new product for the plant. As he made his way out of the community center Thursday, Foster reflected on what the UAW victory would mean to Belvidere and the growing union movement nationally.

“This is going to be a turning point for the community of Belvidere,” Foster said. “And I think this will end up being a milestone in the development of unions and people’s attitudes toward them. This narrative that somehow unions have wrecked the economy of Illinois and the Rust Belt — try to tell that to Belvidere today.”

On Thursday night, union results were tallied and Local 1268 members voted overwhelmingly to ratify the UAW agreement with Stellantis, Frantzen said.

“It was a great day,” Frantzen said. “Definitely a reason to celebrate for the members, which they haven’t had in a long time.”

Biden to Belvidere UAW: 'You changed the face of the country'
Jeff Kolkey, Rockford Register Star
 Thu, November 9, 2023 

Auto workers sacrificed to save the automotive industry during the 2008 financial crisis, President Joe Biden told hundreds of United Auto Workers during a celebration in Belvidere Thursday.

It's only right now that the auto industry is reaping billions in profit that they get repaid with fair wages, cost of living adjustments and a nearly $5 billion investment to reopen and expand the Belvidere Assembly Plant with a new battery production facility and a $100 million parts distribution center, Biden said.

"The financial crisis was more than a decade ago, and now the auto companies are doing incredibly well," Biden said. "So auto workers should be doing incredibly well as well."

Biden traveled to the region Thursday, landing at the Chicago Rockford International Airport in Airforce One.

More: President Biden lands in Rockford to celebrate reopening of the Belvidere Assembly Plant

He joined Gov. JB Pritzker, UAW President Shawn Fain and UAW Local 1268 President Matt Frantzen for a rally at the Community Building Complex of Boone County, 111 W. First St. in Belvidere.

UAW workers, civic leaders and elected officials crowded into an area in front of the stage to celebrate a hard won agreement that will not only mean thousands of jobs in the Rockford region and new life for the Belvidere plant, but wage increases that are reverberating across the economy.

"Look folks, these deals are game changers," Biden said. "Not only for UAW workers, but for all workers in America. Just ask the folks at Toyota, which last week announced they would significantly increase wages. That's thanks to you. They had no choice because of what you did. It's a bigger thing than I think even you all realize. You changed the face of the country economically."

Gov. JB Pritzker said he was honored to celebrate with "the heroes of Belvidere UAW 1268." He said it was union members across the country that made the reopening of the Belvidere Assembly Plant possible.

"You fought for an agreement that brought it all together for working families," Pritzker said. "Higher wages, expanded benefits and more new jobs for your children and grandchildren in a growing industry. Belvidere will see thousands of good paying jobs and billions of dollars invested right here in Illinois because when our workers succeed, we all win."

UAW President Shawn Fain said he remembers the sacrifices auto workers made during The Great Recession that saved the auto industry.

He said he is grateful for Biden’s support and the advocacy of Illinois legislators and Pritzker to negotiate with Stellantis and assemble an attractive public incentive package.

But he said it was the workers themselves and the “Stand-Up Strike” that forced Stellantis' hand.

“Nobody thought we could accomplish what we've accomplished,” Fain said. “Reopen Belvidere? Forget it. Win a just transition to electric vehicle battery work? It's impossible. We were literally told it was illegal. And here we stand.”

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Biden in Belvidere says the UAW strike benefited 'all workers'

Biden backs UAW aim to unionize Tesla, Toyota

Thu, November 9, 2023 at 11:32 PM MST

STORY: U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday backed the United Auto Workers' plans to turn their unionization efforts to carmakers Tesla and Toyota, as he sets out to shore up blue collar support ahead of next year's election.

"Wall Street didn't build America, the middle class built America. And unions built the middle class."

Speaking in Belvidere, Illinois, Biden congratulated the UAW and its leader Shawn Fain on achieving new deals with Detroit's Big Three automakers that ended a nearly 45-day strike, saying he wants it for "all autoworkers".

"These deals are game changers. Not only for UAW workers, but for all workers in America. Just ask the folks at Toyota, which last week announced it would significantly finally increase wages for their workers. They had no choice because of what you did, you helped everybody."

En route to the event, Biden told reporters that he “absolutely” supports UAW's efforts to unionize Tesla and Toyota workers.

In response to Biden's remarks, Toyota said it wants to "foster positive morale" and boost workforce productivity, adding that, "The decision to unionize is ultimately made by our team members."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment - though what Biden said on Thursday may renew friction between him and CEO Elon Musk, who has made anti-union comments before.

Meanwhile, Biden also made sure to remind the autoworkers of his long history supporting unions.

And pointed out how Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump visited a nonunion factory in Michigan in September, during the massive UAW strike.

The UAW has yet to endorse Biden, unlike most other labor organizations.

Although, labor leaders and Democratic officials say that endorsement is expected after the union's members approve their tentative contract deals with the Big Three.

The agreements dramatically raise salaries for auto workers and restricts use of lower paid temporary workers.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/11/labors-prez-biden-to-meet-with-uaw.html

Biden bashes Trump’s auto industry record in remarks to UAW members

Brett Samuels
Thu, November 9, 2023


President Biden used a major labor agreement between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Big Three auto companies to hammer former President Trump on Thursday for his record on jobs and support for union workers.

Biden, donning a red UAW shirt, addressed a boisterous crowd of supporters and community officials in Belvidere, Ill., near a reopening auto plant. The president was in Illinois for a victory lap after the union reached an agreement with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis late last month on a contract that included significant pay increases and other benefits.

The agreement was a major win for Biden, who joined striking workers on the picket line in Michigan and has touted himself as the most pro-union president in history. On Thursday, he used the deal to draw a contrast with Trump, his likely 2024 opponent.

“When my predecessor was in office, six factories closed across the country. Tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide, and on top of that he was willing to cede the future of electric vehicles to China,” Biden said.

“Well, like almost everything else he said, he’s wrong,” Biden added. “And you have proved him wrong. Instead of lower wages, you won record gains. Instead of fewer jobs, you won a commitment for thousands of more jobs.”
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Biden bashed Trump for a September visit to Michigan, where he spoke at a nonunion shop amid the autoworkers strike. And the president blasted Trump’s claims that the U.S. is a “nation in decline,” prompting boos from the crowd and calls from one attendee to “jail Trump.”

The weeks-long auto strikes came to an end in late October after UAW leaders reached tentative deals with the three automakers. The agreements with the companies included a 25 percent general pay increase over the course of a four-year contract, increased retirement benefits and more paid leave.

“Look folks, these deals are game-changers,” Biden said. “Not only for UAW workers, but for all workers in America. Just ask the folks at Toyota, which last week announced it would significantly finally increase wages for their workers. They had no choice because of what you did. You helped everybody.”

The president described UAW workers who spent several weeks on strike as “tough as they come,” and he singled out UAW President Shawn Fain for praise, saying he had a “backbone like a ramrod.”

Biden also thanked Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which he said negotiated “ultimately in good faith.”

The negotiations presented a difficult balancing act for Biden, who has simultaneously fought for the rights of unions while pushing for more investments in electric vehicles, one of the issues that was at the center of the negotiations between the UAW and the automakers.

Biden was briefly interrupted at the start of his remarks by a protester who urged him to call for a cease-fire in Gaza amid fighting between Israel and Hamas. The woman was quickly escorted out of the room.

The president said earlier Thursday there was “no possibility of a cease-fire,” which U.S. officials have argued would benefit Hamas, a militant group that launched terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis last month.

Instead, the U.S. pushed Israel to agree to humanitarian pauses to allow aid into Gaza and for hostages to get out. Israel agreed Thursday to four-hour daily pauses in parts of Gaza.

Biden stresses support for unions and meets with UAW president after strike

Megan Lebowitz and Marley Jay and Owen Hayes and Allie Raffa
Thu, November 9, 2023

President Joe Biden on Thursday emphasized his support for unions during a trip to Illinois and celebrated the reopening of a Stellantis plant after tentative deals were recently struck between the United Auto Workers and three major U.S. automakers following a strike that lasted weeks.

Biden also met with United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, as well as union members in his visit to the city of Belvidere, northwest of Chicago.

"I want to thank you for your commitment to the solidarity, for exercising your right to bargain collectively," Biden said in remarks delivered to an audience of union members. "You made this happen."

The president told the crowd that they are changing "the face of the country economically" with their efforts.

The plant's planned reopening will help highlight Biden's commitment to "rehiring and retooling the EV and EV battery jobs in the same communities where auto jobs have created good-paying union jobs for decades," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday, ahead of the president's trip. The plant had been idled early this year.

The UAW struck a tentative agreement with General Motors late last month, days after making similar breakthroughs with Ford and Stellantis. The White House and Fain have touted the Stellantis plant's planned reopening as the result of the tentative agreement between the UAW and the company, which owns Chrysler.

The White House has said that the factory's reopening would bring back “more than all of the 1,200 jobs lost, and at higher wages.” The company is also adding about 1,000 new union jobs because Stellantis is investing in new battery manufacturing, the White House said.

Biden frequently highlights unions in his economy speeches, claiming he is the “most pro-union president” in history. He visited a UAW picket line in Michigan early in the autoworkers’ strike, becoming the first sitting president to do so.

“You saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before,” Biden said in remarks on the picket line in September. “You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot, and the companies were in trouble. But now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too.”

Ahead of his remarks on Thursday, a local union leader gave Biden a T-shirt from the union chapter, which he wore during his speech.

"That shirt looks good on you," an audience member yelled during the program.

Biden's remarks were briefly interrupted at the beginning by a protester who shouted for him to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The crowd booed the interruption while Biden tried to quell the tension, saying: "Let her go ... it's OK."

The UAW strike started in mid-September as union members worked to negotiate contracts with the three big automakers. The union was ultimately able to negotiate contracts that would provide union members with increased pay and reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, among other benefits.

"My administration will keep working to make sure UAW has what it needs to outcompete China and everyone else in the world. I've reminded other world leaders it's never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America," Biden said during his remarks.

Biden also took a shot at former president Donald Trump during his speech, mentioning him by name which he often refrains from doing in remarks to the public.

"Is there ever anything America set its mind to as a nation that we’ve done together and we haven’t succeeded?" Biden said. "Well, you know, Donald Trump often says, 'We’re now a failing nation. We’re a nation in decline.'" The audience booed in response, with one person shouting, "put him in jail!"

Following the event, Fain called Biden's visit "a great day." But despite the praise, the UAW has not endorsed Biden's re-election bid. The union endorsed him in 2020.

"Our primary focus right now is just getting the contracts ratified," Fain told NBC News. "You know, getting the membership, the information they need to make a decision." He added that there will be a time for making endorsements.

Biden's remarks come just a day after a tentative agreement was also reached between the actors union SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, potentially ending a monthslong actors strike that along with a writers strike, ground Hollywood to a halt. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is a trade group that bargains for studio and streaming services and represents Comcast, which owns NBC News.

“When both sides come to the table to negotiate in earnest, they can make businesses stronger and allow workers to secure pay and benefits that help them raise families and retire with dignity,” Biden said in a statement celebrating the tentative agreement.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Wynn Resorts workers in Las Vegas avert strike, reach tentative deal hours before deadline

MAX ZAHN
Fri, November 10, 2023 

Wynn Resorts workers in Las Vegas avert strike, reach tentative deal hours before deadline

Hotel and restaurant workers in Las Vegas reached a tentative agreement with Wynn Resorts on Friday just hours before a deadline, averting a strike against casino owners that could have disrupted the tourist industry ahead of a Formula 1 race next week that's expected to attract thousands of visitors, the union said.

The tentative deal sets working conditions for 5,000 employees at two Wynn Resorts locations, and comes on the heels of similar agreements with Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International that covered roughly 35,500 workers.

The Culinary Workers Union said in a statement Friday that the five-year contract includes the largest wage increases ever negotiated in its 88-year history, as well as increased safety protections, workload reductions for some workers, and expanded use of technology.

The tentative agreement, which must be ratified by a majority vote of the union members, ends seven months of negotiations with Wynn, according to a statement from Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union.

MORE: Biden meets with UAW president, calls for union deals across auto industry

"With this new union contract, hospitality workers will be able to provide for their families and thrive in Las Vegas," Pappageorge said.

Similarly, Wynn Las Vegas applauded the tentative deal in a statement.

"We look forward to ratification of our agreement soon, and to providing the legendary service for which our employees are known to the thousands of race fans about to join us," said Michael Weaver, a spokesperson for Wynn Las Vegas.

The union said that contract negotiations remain ongoing with 24 smaller hotels and casinos where a total of roughly 18,000 union members work.

The tentative agreement with Wynn Resorts comes amid a flurry of labor deals nationwide in recent weeks that have ended prolonged workplace disputes.

PHOTO: People walk along a pedestrian bridge near the Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino, Sept. 17, 2020, in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP, FILE)

SAG-AFTRA, the union representing approximately 160,000 actors, voice talents and announcers, reached a tentative deal on Wednesday with major TV and movie studios that suspends a strike launched more than three months ago.

MORE: Actors union SAG-AFTRA reaches tentative deal to end monthslong strike

Additionally, the 'Big Three' U.S. automakers -- Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Jeep and Chrysler -- struck tentative agreements with the United Auto Workers last month to end a roughly six-week strike.

Addressing UAW members at a car plant in Illinois on Thursday, President Joe Biden celebrated the recent wave of labor organizing.

"Wall Street didn't build America," Biden said. "The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class."

"I worked hard in negotiations to represent my co-workers and to win a better life for my family," Araceli Villa Lobos, a kitchen employee at Wynn and a union member for 16 years, said in a statement.

The Culinary Workers Union represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, and is "Nevada's largest Latinx/Black/AAPI/immigrant organization," the union said, with the majority of its members Latinx.

Wynn Resorts workers in Las Vegas avert strike, reach tentative deal hours before deadline originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Wynn joins Caesars and MGM in reaching tentative deal to avoid a strike by Las Vegas hotel workers

RIO YAMAT
Updated Fri, November 10, 2023 

Hotel Workers Union Vegas
Members of the Culinary Workers Union rally along the Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in Las Vegas. After a marathon week of negotiations, the Las Vegas hotel workers union says it has reached a tentative deal with Wynn Resorts. It was the last contract the Culinary Workers Union needed to avoid a strike Friday, Nov. 10, 2023, and came after the union's tentative deals with Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Over seven months of tense negotiations, mandatory daily room cleanings underscored the big issues that Las Vegas union hotel workers were fighting to address in their first contracts since the pandemic: job security, better working conditions and safety while on the job.

From the onset of bargaining, Ted Pappageorge, the chief contract negotiator for the Culinary Workers Union, had said tens of thousands of workers whose contracts expired earlier this year would be willing to go on strike to make daily room cleanings mandatory.

Without it, Pappageorge said in one of many news conferences since April, “the jobs of tens of thousands of workers are in jeopardy of cutbacks and reduction.”

It was a message that Pappageorge and the workers would repeat for months as negotiations ramped up and the union threatened to go on strike if they didn't have contracts by first light on Friday with MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts.

But by dawn Friday, the union had secured tentative labor deals with all three companies, narrowly averting a sweeping strike at 18 hotel-casinos along the Strip. Agreements with MGM and Caesars — the Strip’s two largest employers — came earlier in the week, while the settlement with Wynn Resorts was announced just a few hours before the strike deadline.

The proposed contracts need to be approved by the union's rank and file. Pappageorge said a vote will take place within the next two weeks.

In a statement, Wynn Resorts said it was pleased to reach an agreement that “fulfills our shared goal of providing outstanding benefits and overall compensation to our employees in a work environment that is second to none.” The agreement covers about 5,000 union employees at the company’s flagship hotel-casino and Encore Resorts.

Christine Cook, a uniform control attendant at Wynn, said in a statement provided by the union that her favorite parts of the new contract are "the wage increases and the retroactive pay because it will help my family and I have a better future and achieve our dreams.”

President Joe Biden sent his congratulations to the union, saying hospitality workers should always be able to provide for their families.

“These workers understand better than just about anybody that a job is about more than just a paycheck.,” Biden said in a statement. “It’s about dignity. It’s about respect. Most importantly, it’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay.’”

Terms of the deals weren't immediately released, but the union says that the proposed five-year contracts will provide workers with historic wage increases, reduced workloads and other unprecedented wins — including mandated daily room cleanings.

Before the pandemic, daily room cleanings were routine. Hotel guests could expect fresh bedsheets and new towels by dinnertime if a “Do Not Disturb" sign wasn't hanging on their hotel room doors.

But as social distancing became commonplace in 2020, hotels began to cut back on the service.

More than three years later, the once industry-wide standard has yet to make a full comeback. Some companies say it's because there are environmental benefits to offering fewer room cleanings, like saving water.

MGM Resorts and Caesars didn't respond to emailed requests for comment about the issue. Pappageorge said this week that, even as negotiations came down to the wire ahead of the union's plans to strike, the union and casino companies were the “farthest apart” on the issue.

A spokesman for Wynn Resorts said they already offer daily room cleanings and did not cut back on that service during the pandemic.

“What these companies have seen is that they’ve been able to reduce labor costs significantly if they can convince guests to reject or relinquish daily room cleaning,” Pappageorge has said while talking about the importance of protecting union jobs.

It's a fear that Las Vegas hotel workers across the board shared in interviews with The Associated Press since negotiations began in the spring — from the porters and kitchen staff who work behind the scenes to keep the Strip’s hotel-casinos running, to the cocktail servers and bellman who provide customers with the hospitality that has helped make the city famous.

During the pandemic, the hospitality industry learned how to “do more with less,” said David Edelblute, a Las Vegas-based attorney and lobbyist whose corporate clients include gaming and hospitality companies.

And that combination, he said, could be "pretty catastrophic” for the labor force.

Rory Kuykendall, a bellman at Flamingo Las Vegas, said in September after voting to authorize a strike that he wanted stronger job protection against the inevitable advancements in technology to be written into their new union contract.

“We want to make sure that we, as the workers, have a voice and a say in any new technology that is introduced at these casinos,” he said.

That includes technology already at play at some resorts: mobile check-in, automated valet tickets and robot bartenders.

Pappageorge, who led the negotiating teams that secured tentative deals this week with the casino giants, said a cut in daily room cleanings also poses health and safety concerns for the housekeepers who still had to reach a daily room quota.

Jennifer Black, a guest room attendant at Flamingo Las Vegas, described her first job in the hospitality sector as “back-breaking.”

A typical day on the job, she said, requires her to clean 13 rooms after guests have checked out. Each room takes between 30-45 minutes to clean, but rooms that haven’t been cleaned for a few days, she said, take more time to turn over.

“We're working through our lunch breaks to make it,” she said. “Our workload is far too much."

Wynn Resorts quiet on Culinary deal, bullish on F1 luxury opportunities as race nears
Greg Haas
Thu, November 9, 2023



LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Wynn Resorts told investors Thursday they have set aside money to pay higher wages that could come with a new Culinary Union contract, but there were no revelations on when that deal would come.

The Culinary Union said negotiations are continuing this evening with Wynn and Encore. The two properties employ about 5,000 hospitality workers. The union set a deadline of 5 a.m. Friday for a contract — the last deal waiting to be approved with Las Vegas Strip resorts.

Caesars Entertainment announced a tentative agreement on Wednesday morning, followed by a Thursday announcement from MGM Resorts International. Wynn is expected to be the next domino to fall as the biggest operators on the Las Vegas Strip sign deals that would prevent a strike before the highly anticipated F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov. 16-18.

But Wynn Resorts didn’t volunteer new information during the third-quarter earnings call, and investors were already turning the page to questions about the company’s success at its Macau properties.

F1’s appeal to Wynn’s clientele also brought a lot of discussion. Wynn Las Vegas bills itself as a luxury brand — a natural match for the big-money international crowd that flocks to F1 races across the world.

“Our expectations for F1 haven’t changed one bit because as you rightly pointed out, we knew that it was our customer base that would be at that event from the beginning,” CEO Craig Billings said. The hotel is sold out for the three days of F1 events.

“We barely even put any rooms on public sale,” he said. Those rooms were priced at an average $2,533 a night over the three days.

Chief Operating Officer Brian Gullbrants said Wynn “should exceed our all-time hotel revenue record by 50% for the three-day period.” He added that gaming revenue should be some of the best ever seen.

“We have more front money in credit lined up for this event than any event we’ve had in the history of Wynn Las Vegas. And we’ve had some doozies before,” Billings said.

Billings noted a record third quarter for the company’s Wynn and Encore operations in Las Vegas. Casinos have seen big profits at the baccarat tables recently, but other operations are also profiting.

“Wynn Las Vegas delivered $220 million of adjusted property EBITDAR (earnings), up 12% on an incredibly difficult year-over-year comp. Yes, it was aided by high hold, but it was also despite the fact that we accrued during the quarter for the estimated increases associated with the new agreement with the Culinary Union,” Billings said.

“I’ve got to tell you, activity at the property was frenetic during the quarter, with hotel occupancy, restaurant covers, casino visitation, table drop and slot handle all up over what was a very strong third quarter of 2022,” he said.

The company reported a $10 million hit on operating expenses in Las Vegas as they set aside money for the Culinary deal. But that total also included money for cost-of-living raises for non-union employees, as well as costs associated with relaunching the “Awakening” show.

As Wynn carves out an even bigger share of the Las Vegas luxury market, investors remain eager for good news out of China, where things have improved significantly for Wynn over the past year. Business in Macau has returned to 85% of pre-pandemic levels, Billings said.

Billings said he expects licensing of Wynn’s UAE project — Wynn Al Marjan Island in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah — to come soon.

Operating revenues were $1.67 billion for the third quarter of 2023, an increase of $782.2 million from $889.7 million for the third quarter of 2022. The company declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share.

Wynn Resorts posts better-than-expected Q3 profit on Macau business recovery

Reuters
Thu, November 9, 2023 

(Reuters) - Casino operator Wynn Resorts beat third-quarter profit estimates on Thursday, as strength in gaming, luxury retail and hotel bookings drove steady demand at its Macau properties.

The post-pandemic travel rebound in Macau has been a tailwind for casino operators such as Wynn Resorts.

The results come ahead of the Nov. 10 strike deadline from Las Vegas hospitality workers over a new labor contract.

The unions representing hospitality workers in Las Vegas have been negotiating for about seven months for higher wages, stronger protections against new technology that may threaten jobs, a reduction in steep quotas for housekeepers and improved safety for workers.

While competitors MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment have reached a tentative deal with the unions, Wynn Resorts has yet to yield an agreement.

It previously said it has negotiations scheduled with the unions on Thursday.

Shares of the company fell 4.7% in trading after the bell.

The company posted adjusted profit of 99 cents per share in the third quarter, compared with analysts' average estimate of 75 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Its total revenue was $1.67 billion during the period, while analysts expected $1.59 billion.

(Reporting by Anandita Mehrotra and Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

Orcas strike back (again), sinking another yacht in Europe after 45-minute attack

Camille Fine, USA TODAY
Updated Wed, November 8, 2023 

Sailors’ newest nightmare has struck again, and on Halloween of all days.

A pod of orcas in southwestern Europe sank a sailing boat on Oct. 31 after a non-stop, 45-minute attack, Live Science reported. The incident is the fourth occurrence in two years where orcas, also known as killer whales, are blamed for sinking ships in southwestern Europe.

Orca pods from the Strait of Gibraltar region have been harassing boats and their passengers for more than three years.

According to a translated Facebook post made by Polish cruise company Morskie Mile, owner of the sunken boat, a mid-size sailing yacht named the Grazie Mamma was attacked by a pod of orcas off the coast of Morocco in the Strait of Gibraltar. Major damage caused by an unknown number of orcas who repeatedly hit the yacht's rudder caused water to enter the vessel's hull. All passengers were safely evacuated before the boat sank as it entered the port of Tanger-Med in Morocco while in tow with the Moroccan Navy.

Orca attacks: Why are orcas attacking boats and sometimes sinking them?

Why are orcas attacking boats?

Tales of orca ambushes have started gaining more traction online as reported incidents off the Iberian coast jumped from 52 in 2020 to more than 200 last year, though no human injuries or deaths have been reported, Orca research group GTOA revealed earlier this year.

Experts first documented juvenile Iberian killer whales — a "unique subpopulation of killer whales that lives in the northeast Atlantic," — touching, pushing, and even turning vessels, including some fishing and inflatable boats, in 2020, GTOA said. Experts think the rest of the population could be mimicking the behavior.

Killer whales: In a first, detailed video captures orcas hunting great white sharks in South Africa

An orca pod was captured attacking a boat off the coast of Morocco.

Experts gathered earlier this year to try and address "urgent need for specific actions based on international coordination between administrations, mariners and scientists to prevent future damage to people, orcas and vessels," GTOA said.

Andrew Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia, told CBS News that there are two main theories about why this is happening, but for now it remains to be an “unprecedented” mystery. Trites said something is positively reinforcing the behavior among the highly intelligent species.

Iberian orcas are the only species of whale that have been known to attack boats in this region, Trites added.

The first main theory is that orcas are engaging in a type of whale "play" or "sport,” Trites said. The second theory is that orcas’ years of dealing with traumatic boating injuries have resulted in a "negative experience.”

Whale expert Anne Gordon told USA Today that these are isolated incidents.

"Yes, their job is to be predators in the ocean, but in normal circumstances there is absolutely zero threat to humans in a boat," Gordon said.

“I think it gets taken as aggression because it’s causing damage, but I don’t think we can say that the motivation is aggressive necessarily,” Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Washington based nonprofit research organization Orca Behavior Institute, told NBC News late last month.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Orcas, or killer whales, blamed for attack sinking sailboat in Europe

Orcas’ latest boat attack claims yacht sailing in Strait of Gibraltar

Patrick Smith
Thu, November 9, 2023

Morskie Mile via Facebook

A yacht sank after it was attacked by a pod of orcas for 45 minutes, a sailing company has said, marking the latest assault on a boat by the sea mammals this year.

Polish tour operator Morskie Mile — which means "sea miles" — said in a Facebook post that its yacht Grazie Mamma II was attacked while sailing the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco on Oct. 31.

The whales attacked the boat's rudder, the company said, causing major damage and a leak. Despite an attempt by the captain to take the boat to the nearest port, and a rescue attempt that involved the Moroccan Navy, the yacht sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger Med, about an hour's drive east of the city of Tangiers.

The boat's crew were unharmed, the company said in a statement that NBC News translated from Polish. The same statement was posted to the company's website by company owner Lech Lewandowski.

"For us, this yacht was everything that was great about sea sailing," he said.

"Long-term friendships were formed onboard. We sailed this yacht through the most beautiful places in Europe and the Atlantic archipelagos, trained numerous yacht helmsmen, discovered the beautiful and unknown, tasted Mediterranean specialties and sailed, sailed, sailed," Lewandowski continued.

The company said it was planning to honor forthcoming cruise bookings by using "friends' yachts." Future trips will take in the Baltic Sea, Norway, Italy and the Canary Islands, according to the company's website. A single leg of a voyage can cost 1,800 Polish zloty ($432).

In May, it emerged that orcas were responsible for attacking and sinking three boats in southern Europe. Encounters between orcas and humans have been increasing since 2020, researchers say, but no human deaths have been reported.

The increased orca-boat activity has led to a slew of internet memes this year, with some claiming they were joining the "orca wars" on the side of the orcas.

In September, a Russian boat on a round-the-world trip was sunk after a prolonged attack by tiny cookiecutter sharks.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ORCA ATTACKS 

UK

Schools’ fear of teaching sex education ‘is driving rise in STIs’

Louisa Clarence-Smith
Fri, 10 November 2023 

Dame Rachel De Souza said young people had raised concerns over their lack of education on sex and relationships - Anthony Upton

Schools’ fear of teaching sex education is driving a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, the Children’s Commissioner for England has said.

Dame Rachel De Souza said that issues around sexual health were not always being taught consistently or well because of a failure to resolve controversies around sex education lessons and a lack of clear guidance for teachers.

She told The Times Health Commission: “I go around the country talking to teenagers and saying, ‘What’s on your mind?’ and I cannot tell you how many times sex education comes up.

“They say, ‘nobody has ever taught me – is my body right? What do I do about preventing pregnancy? How should I have a relationship?’ They’re asking me about this. Heads are so frightened about teaching these things and they’re not teaching these things well in school.”

Data published by the UK Health and Security Agency shows that in 2022, the number of new STI diagnoses among young people aged 15 to 24 years increased by 26.5 per cent to 164,337 cases.

The agency said this was largely because of the near doubling of cases of gonorrhoea over the same period to 31,037 cases. Diagnosis of chlamydia also increased.

‘Very variable teaching’

Dame Rachel said that too many head teachers were “outsourcing” sex and relationships education.

She said: “You’ve got very variable teaching. Maybe sex education is taught by an unqualified teacher, it’s not prioritised. But added to that I think we’ve got this worry about ‘what should I teach?’.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, ordered an urgent review of sex education in schools earlier this year after parents told The Telegraph that children as young as 12 have been asked in lessons what they “feel” about oral and anal sex, while other children have been taught that there are “100 genders”.

The Department for Education is due to introduce age limits for sex education content and will tell schools not to teach contested gender ideology. It is expected to publish new sex education guidance for schools before the end of the year.

UK

BT tech chief sparks AI row after comparing humans to horses

THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY

James Warrington
Fri, 10 November 2023 

Harmeen Mehta says AI replacing jobs is 'part of an evolution'

BT’s technology chief has sparked a row after comparing workers whose jobs are under threat from AI to horses being replaced by cars.

Union chiefs have hit out at the analogy made by Harmeen Mehta, BT’s chief digital and innovation officer, who described the impact of AI on the jobs market as “evolution”.

In an interview with Raconteur magazine, she said: “I don‘t know how horses felt when the car was invented, but they didn’t complain that they were put out of a job; they didn’t go on strike.

“It’s part of evolution. Some jobs will change, some new ones will be created and some will no longer be needed.”

Her comments come as BT pursues plans to cut up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade, with around a fifth of workers to be replaced by AI.

The company expects to deploy the technology largely in its customer service division.

Outgoing chief executive Philip Jansen has said it could save the company hundreds of millions of pounds.

Ms Mehta also accused the media of overstating the dangers of AI, while insisting that “society changes and jobs morph”.

She said: “The media here is creating a level of paranoia that’s going to paralyse this country – it creates more emotional problems for me than I do for myself.

“I’ve spent the past two years trying to convince my company that human intelligence and artificial intelligence can work together.”

Despite this, Ms Mehta still urged people to retrain, warning that those who don’t might be automated out of work.

She said: “Every job that exists today won’t exist in exactly the same form in the future.

“The people who reskill themselves will have jobs, at this company or another, while those who don‘t might not. That is simply part of the evolution of society.”

The comments sparked accusations that the BT executive was questioning workers’ intelligence and undermining their right to strike.

The Communication Workers Union, which represents thousands of BT employees, said: “The right to strike has been a hard-won human right that should not be denigrated by people in positions of corporate seniority.

“Nor should the intelligence of workers, who just want a serious discussion on AI that respects their concerns and ensures there is reasonable protection for them.”

Opinion
As a former Palestinian negotiator, I know Biden’s two-state solution is sheer delusion

Ahmad Samih Khalidi

THE GUARDIAN
Sat, 11 November 2023 

Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

There is yet no clear political endgame emerging from the Israeli government or its western allies, still seemingly ready to support Israel’s free hand to punish the people of Gaza under the ‘right to defend itself’. However, putting aside the more extreme voices seeking to permanently depopulate the Strip or nuke it to oblivion, two largely consensual goals can be adduced from the Israeli stance so far: the first is that Hamas must be unequivocally defeated and its military and political-civilian presence uprooted from Gaza once and for all; and the second, that there should be no return to the status quo ante – that is, that any post-Hamas regime must be consistent with Israel’s security needs and the trauma suffered by the Israeli people on 7 October. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has confirmed as much by asserting that Israel will retain “indefinite” security control over the Strip, thereby reversing the withdrawal that ostensibly ended in 2005.

Hamas’s armed force is no match for Israel’s military might, and the immediate result in the field is almost certain to reflect this. But Hamas is not only deeply embedded in the soil of Gaza as a social and political movement; its presence stretches across the region with an extensive network of cadres, sympathisers and sponsors, including the broader Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated movements globally. Regardless of what happens in the military confrontation, Hamas’s residual presence and its claim to represent the spirit of Palestinian resistance is likely to enhance its reputation and ability to renew itself among the masses of Palestinians maddened, frustrated and traumatised by the images of death rained down on Gaza’s civilians. Even those who do not support Hamas may be drawn to the notion of resistance.

It is worth recalling that the Strip has been the incubator of the Palestinian national movement and its armed factions – from Fatah in the 1950s to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the 1980s. All have been born from Gaza’s searing 75-year-old experience with brute Israeli force, from mowing down refugees seeking to return to their homes and fields in the “Gaza envelope” after 1948 through the massacres of unarmed protesters during the first Israeli occupation of 1956, Ariel Sharon’s brutal “pacification” campaign in 1970-71, the era of settler occupation up to 2005, the dozen Israeli operations against Gaza before the 2005 withdrawal, to the siege and repeated bloody assaults since. Those who think that the ongoing bloodbath will reverse this history may well need to think again.


But rather than learning from history, the trend seems to be heading in an entirely different direction. In struggling to define a clear political endgame, President Joe Biden, among others, has called for a “horizon” for a two-state solution as its centrepiece. Operationally, this could entail forming an Arab-Palestinian Authority-international peacekeeping force to take over from Israeli forces after Hamas’s defeat, unifying the West Bank and Gaza Strip under PA control, reviving Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over a final status settlement, and promoting regional security and stability by pursuing normalisation with Riyadh along with a massive injection of Saudi or Gulf moneys to rebuild the devastated Strip.

It is hard to disentangle the strands of delusion in any such scenario. A future Gaza regime based on a permanent or semi-permanent policing effort against Hamas or other resistant elements will be perceived by the Palestinians as a new and hostile occupation, acting in the service of Israel. Very few Arab or international forces are likely to be tempted by this prospect. Whether Riyadh can pursue normalisation and commit to rebuilding Gaza without a clear sense of how stability and freedom from Israeli occupation will be secured is another issue. And it is very hard to see Israel relinquishing its security role in Gaza to any outside party, thus immediately putting itself in forceful contention with any local governmental alternative to Hamas, whether Palestinian or otherwise. For its part, the PA will need more than sweet words about a political horizon to justify any return to Gaza under direct Israeli military control, or with a peacekeeping force bent on de-Hamasification.

But perhaps the greatest obstacle to any revived two-state solution comes from Israel itself. Any serious moves towards two-state solution will necessarily require a significant change in the prevailing one-state reality in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The 7 October earthquake is most likely to drive the Israeli public even further to the right. The 750,000 settlers spread across East Jerusalem and the West Bank – now seeking arms to create “sterile zones” around Palestinian towns and villages in pursuit of asserting Israeli sovereignty and denying any Palestinian national rights – will form an even more insurmountable political and psychological barrier to altering the status quo to the Palestinians’ advantage. The Palestinian position in the wake of the war may make it more difficult for any authority or leader to adopt a more compromising position towards a political settlement, or any Israeli presence in Gaza.

With its unqualified embrace and persistent arming of Israel’s onslaught, the Biden administration may find it hard to preach peacemaking. But over and above all of this is the enormous heft required to draw sustainable separation lines that meet both Israeli security demands and Palestinian requirements for minimal “sovereignty”. And those – primarily the US – who will have to deploy unprecedented political and diplomatic efforts to undo the one-state reality in an unprecedentedly charged local and regional climate will have to face the consequences of either failure or, perhaps even worse, ultimately owning what they are seeking to fix. A US election year with a viscerally pro-Israel incumbent at a seemingly growing electoral disadvantage does not appear to offer the most auspicious conditions for such an effort to succeed.

The Gaza war threatens more than regional stability, with the increasing manifestations of antisemitism and the horrific images of civilian deaths generating deep political and personal fractures across the globe. But all those who think this could be the moment to finally resolve the 100-year conflict over Palestine should remember that it is not enough to draw a line down the winding roads and wadis of the West Bank. Hope tells us that there is always a way forward, but history tells us that that can be a cruel delusion.

Ahmad Samih Khalidi is a Palestinian writer and former negotiator