Monday, March 27, 2023

U.S. auto union leader promises fight to get workers a 'fair share'





UAW member wears a UAWD shirt during the 2023 Special Elections Collective Bargaining Convention in Detroit

Mon, March 27, 2023 
By Joseph White and David Shepardson

DETROIT (Reuters) - Shawn Fain, the new president of the United Auto Workers union, on Monday said he is ready to go to war against "employers who refuse to give our members their fair share."

Fain spoke to a gathering of local union leaders in Detroit after being declared the UAW's president on Saturday. He won a closely-contested race against incumbent Ray Curry by fewer than 500 votes, according to the count administered by a court appointed monitor.

Now, Fain faces the task of unifying UAW members for what promises to be difficult negotiations this summer and fall with the Detroit Three automakers - Ford Motor Co, General Motors Co and Stellantis NV's.

The auto sector talks come as the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign begins to heat up. U.S. President Joe Biden and other Democrats are appealing to the UAW and its members for votes in Michigan, a 2024 swing state.

Michigan Democratic U.S. Senator Gary Peters told attendees at Monday's convention that EV batteries and chips should be built by union labor.

Fain said during his campaign that he will fight for substantial changes to the current master contracts with the Detroit automakers, and he reiterated that message to UAW bargaining convention delegates on Monday.

"The United Auto Workers are ready to get back in the fight," Fain said.

On the UAW president's agenda are ending the current two-tier wage system under which new hires at Detroit Three plants earn 25% less than UAW workers with five or more years on the job.

Fain has also called for reinstatement of cost of living adjustments, or COLA, to offset inflation, no concessions on health benefits and no U.S. plant closings.

The UAW last year negotiated 10% wage increases in the first year of a six-year agreement with farm equipment maker John Deere. That contract was ratified after a six-week strike. Earlier this month, UAW workers at heavy equipment maker Caterpillar ratified a six-year contract providing for 27% wage increases over its life.

Those contracts could be models for the UAW's goals in talks with the Detroit automakers beginning this summer, analysts said.

The Detroit automakers have reported robust profits during the past four years from their North American operations, mainly thanks to the pickup trucks and SUVs that UAW members assemble.

However, North American operations for the Detroit Three automakers are under pressure as they pour billions into electric vehicles and battery production. All three companies have moved to cut costs, reducing salaried staff or, in Stellantis' case, idling a U.S. assembly plant.

The UAW and Detroit automakers will begin bargaining toward new contracts this summer. The current contracts expire on Sept. 14. Usually, the UAW concludes an agreement with one Detroit automaker and uses that as the pattern for contracts at the other two. For the first time in many years, Canadian auto workers will also be negotiating new contracts with the Detroit Three at the same time.

In 2019, UAW workers at General Motors went on strike for 40 days before a new contract was ratified, costing the automaker $3 billion.

(Reporting By Joe White; Editing by Aurora Ellis)


New UAW President Shawn Fain promises shakeup, new era for unions


Yahoo Finance
Mon, March 27, 2023 

Yahoo Finance’s Dani Romero joins the Live show to discuss key takeaways from the UAW (United American Workers) union election.

Video Transcript

- All right, new leadership for the United Auto Workers union is promising a new era for workers. Newly elected President, Shaun Fain, has vowed to take a quote, "more aggressive approach" in dealing with employers. Joining me now with the latest is our very own Dani Romero. Dani, what are the expectations here?

DANI ROMERO: What a victory lap for Shaun Fain who is now the new president of United Auto Workers union. And this is a critical one for them as they head to that negotiating table. But not only that, but how did Shaun get to that presidential seat?

Well, for one, this was the first election that was open to all union members. And not only that, it was a really close battle against his opponent, Ray Curry, who was the former head of the union. And not only that, there are some reports that Shaun had some of his allies in the executive board. So that could have steered a little bit of the direction in favor to him. But not only that, this was also a runoff election from November's vote. There was a lot of discrepancies and scrutiny against those results.

But not only that, we have to put it into perspective. What the union really wants is they want change. And to give you some context, before this even this election, which Shaun-- Curry, let's talk about him. Ray Curry was appointed president in 2021 because federal investigators found a lot of corruption within the union. So they booted the former president at that time. So already two presidents prior to Shaun have been-- prior to Ray Curry, excuse me, have been in jail. They're serving time due to this corruption within the union.

But Shaun's whole campaign, like you said, is being confrontational in that contract negotiations, and especially being very persistent when it comes to wages and benefits. So we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out. But not only that, Shaun has been in the union for over nearly three decades. So he definitely knows what he's talking about.

- So then in terms of what this means for some of these Detroit automakers, I mean, some of these legacy brands, what sort of timeline are we looking at here for negotiations?

DANI ROMERO: Well, negotiations already started January 5th. But the contracts end September 14. And their biggest sticking points revolve around their two-tier wage system as well as their benefits. And not only that, they really want to win back some of their cost living adjustments. And job security is their number one thing because you have to put it into perspective, a lot of these car companies are moving and shifting to electric vehicle production. So they really want to be safe and secure with that.

- Certainly will be interesting to see how this plays out because as we've said, he's going to be taking a more aggressive stance here. So automakers, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Thank you so much. Dani Romero there for us.


Challenger wins close race to lead United Auto Workers union




United Auto Workers President Ray Curry speaks during an interview, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, in Detroit. The vote count in the election to decide the United Auto Workers' top leader should come to an end Thursday. 

Challenger Shawn Fain leads incumbent Curry, but they're still counting challenged ballots that could change the outcome. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)


TOM KRISHER
Sat, March 25, 2023 

DETROIT (AP) — A challenger defeated the president of the United Auto Workers in a close election and vowed Saturday to take a more confrontational stance in negotiating with the big automakers.

A court-appointed monitor declared challenger Shawn Fain the winner over incumbent Ray Curry. Fain's slate of candidates won control of the big union, as workers rejected most incumbents in the wake of a bribery and embezzlement scandal

It was the 372,000-member union’s first direct election of its 14-member International Executive Board, which came in the wake of the wide-ranging scandal that landed two former presidents in prison.

The vote count had been going on since March 1, and the outcome was uncertain going into Saturday because of challenges against several hundred ballots.

Curry had filed a protest alleging election irregularities and campaign-financing violations. But he conceded Saturday and said Fain would be sworn in on Sunday.

Fain said members clearly wanted the union to become more aggressive in dealing with the auto makers.

“Today we put the companies on notice the fighting UAW is back,” Fain said in a video.

Fain vowed to end two-tiered contracts that provide lower pay and fewer benefits for some workers. He said the UAW will fight against factory closures that result in lost union jobs.

“We've seen plant after plant close without any serious fight from our union,” he said. “We've lost 40% of our active membership over the past 20 years. That ends here.”

Fain also promised to clean up the union.


Fain, 54, now an administrator with the international union in Detroit, had 69,459 votes, or 50.2%, while Curry had 68,976 votes, or 49.8%, according to an unofficial tally as the counting neared completion.

Earlier, Curry had asked court-appointed monitor Neil Barofsky to hold another runoff election because of the alleged irregularities, but Barofsky denied the request.

Fain’s UAW Members United slate now holds seven of 14 seats on the board, with one independent member siding with his slate. The Curry Solidarity Team slate has six board members. Four of five top officers are from Fain’s slate, including the secretary-treasurer and two of three vice presidents.


The new leadership will have to move quickly to gear up for what are expected to be contentious contract talks coming up this summer with Detroit’s three automakers, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Many in the industry expect strikes against the companies by the union.

Fain will have little time to prepare for the union’s bargaining convention, which is scheduled to start Monday in Detroit. Delegates to the convention decide what the union will want in upcoming contract talks.

In the past, contracts with the Detroit Three set the standard for manufacturing wages nationwide. Fain's statement said he wants to return to the union setting the wage and benefit standard for other sectors of the economy.

Fain and his slate will have to deal with member demands to restore concessions made when the automakers were headed into financial trouble starting in 2007. Many want cost-of-living pay raises, general raises, defined-benefit pensions for all workers, and eliminating tiers of workers so they all get the same pay and benefits.

Automakers prefer annual profit-sharing checks instead of raises so they pay workers when times are good and can cut expenses during economic downturns.

In a February draft of a transition plan, Fain wrote about a big shakeup coming in his first 30 days in office. Jobs will change, and new things will be expected of workers, some of whom will leave, it said.

“Everything we do, at every stage, must be reinforcing the message: there is a new sheriff in town,” Fain’s memo said.

The memo talks about a campaign to prepare workers for strikes.

Mike Booth, one of the new vice presidents, said the automakers are starting to argue that they are financially strapped because they have to fund the development of new electric vehicles. “You can’t develop an electric vehicle product on the backs of UAW members,” he said.

Strikes are possible as the union pushes to organize joint-venture battery plants being built by the companies, and to reverse a Stellantis decision to begin closing a plant in Belvidere, Illinois. Under Curry’s leadership for nearly the past two years, the UAW has taken a more aggressive stance in labor talks, having gone on strike against Volvo Trucks, John Deere, the University of California and CNHI, a maker of agricultural and construction equipment.

When asked about new UAW leadership on Friday, Ford CEO Jim Farley said his company gets along with the union. “Whomever is leading the UAW, we’ll have a great relationship with, and we’ll work hard to improve our industry ... We’ll welcome whoever leads UAW,” he said.

Curry, who was not part of the scandal, was elected to the UAW’s top post by the executive board in June 2021.

The leadership change came after union members decided to directly vote on leaders for the first time in the union’s 87-year history. Under the old system, leaders were picked by delegates to a convention who were selected by local union offices. The new slate of officers was picked by the current leadership, and rarely was there serious opposition.

The direct voting came after 11 union officials and a late official’s spouse pleaded guilty in the corruption probe, including the two former presidents who were sentenced to prison. The first criminal charges in the probe were filed in 2017.

To avoid a federal takeover, the union agreed to reforms and Barofsky’s appointment to oversee the UAW and elections of the executive board.

____

This story has been corrected to say that it was Shawn Fain, not Ray Curry, who said he wants to return to the United Auto Workers setting the wage and benefit standard for other sectors of the economy.

___

Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Fain declares victory in UAW presidential election; Curry sets swearing-in for Sunday

Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press
Sat, March 25, 2023

Shawn Fain was declared the winner Saturday over President Ray Curry in the UAW runoff election, capping a remarkable campaign by dissidents that offered a stinging rebuke to the caucus that has controlled the union for decades.

Fain will be sworn in to office on Sunday, according to a statement from Curry posted on the UAW's website.

The independent federal monitor overseeing the election announced the win Saturday in a filing in federal court in Detroit and later on the monitor’s website following the resumption of the vote count at the UAW Region 1A headquarters in Taylor. The results must still be certified by the monitor. The news ends weeks of uncertainty in a tight contest over the union's direction as it prepares for contract bargaining this year with Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis, owner of Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat.


Shawn Fain in his Shelby Township home on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023.Fain is running for UAW president against incumbent Ray Curry.


Fain, who was atop the UAW Members United slate in the United Auto Workers’ first direct election of top leaders, led Curry by 483 votes, which is greater than the number of challenged ballots remaining, according to a news release from Fain's campaign.

Determining that Fain had won, however, did not come easy. Clearing the challenged ballots for eligibility led to weeks of delay, and the monitor’s office had to issue a ruling on a protest, which it rejected, from the Curry camp, demanding that a new runoff be held.

Fain, in a statement Saturday, thanked members who voted in the historic election:

"This election was not just a race between two candidates, it was a referendum on the direction of the UAW. For too long, the UAW has been controlled by leadership with a top-down, company union philosophy who have been unwilling to confront management, and as a result we’ve seen nothing but concessions, corruption and plant closures. While the election was close, it is clear that our membership has long wanted to see a more aggressive approach with our employers. We now have a historic opportunity to get back to setting the standard across all sectors, and to transform the UAW into a member-led, fighting union once again, and we are going to take it. The future of the working class is at stake.”


Curry, in his statement, wished Fain success:

"I want to express my deep gratitude to all UAW leaders and active and retired members for your many years of support and solidarity. It has been the honor of my life to serve our great union. Tomorrow, Shawn Fain will be sworn in as UAW president, and he will chair our 2023 Special Bargaining Convention. I am committed to ensuring that this transition is smooth and without disruptions. I wish him, the entire UAW International Executive Board, staff and clerical support as well as UAW’s membership great success for the future."

Curry's willingness to move forward with the transition ahead of the convention's Monday start removes a potential concern from some members who had worried that a president-elect might be sidelined during a key event that will set the tone for upcoming bargaining with the Detroit Three. Two sources had told the Free Press this week that Curry had committed to a gentlemen's agreement that if Fain were declared the winner, he could be sworn in prior to the convention. The sources agreed to talk about the issue on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.

Following the news of Fain's win, congratulatory notes went out from numerous sources.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said in a tweet directed at Fain: "I look forward to working together to build on the hard work the men and women of UAW have done for decades to inspire workers everywhere in the fight for better wages and benefits."

Mike Perez, vice president of North American labor relations for GM, said the General Motors team is "committed to building a working relationship based on trust and mutual respect, operating in the best interest of our employees and stakeholders“ with Fain.

A Stellantis statement, provided by spokeswoman Ann Marie Fortunate, said: "We look forward to working with President Fain on issues that will further contribute to our mutual success while securing Stellantis' position in this highly competitive market."

Fain, whose campaign focused on the need to be aggressive in contract negotiations with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis and which sought to capitalize on the desire for reform in light of the corruption scandal that rocked the union, ultimately won a close contest. He had maintained a lead over Curry in the initial days of the count but saw that tighten considerably as results from Region 8, made up of mostly Southern states, were tallied.

Fain’s win means a clean sweep for his slate. It also underscores the discontent felt by many UAW members over the union’s direction in the wake of the long-running corruption scandal, which sent former union leaders and ex-auto executives to prison.

Candidates running as reformers now control a majority of the union's International Executive Board.

Fain’s slate won seven of the 14 seats on the board, and David Green won as an independent in Region 2B.

Still, the division signals the work Fain and others will have as they try to unite the union after a divisive election cycle. Fain and incumbent UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, who heads the union’s Ford department, join Daniel Vicente, director of Region 9, as the winners in the runoff. All three were forced into the runoff because the initial election last year failed to produce a clear winner in each of their respective races.

Ballot counting began in Dayton, Ohio, on March 1 and it continued until it was paused March 4. Fain was leading by 645 votes at that point with the majority of ballots counted, but about 1,608 unresolved challenged ballots meant the margin between the two candidates was too great to declare a winner, according to the monitor’s office. Clearing ballots for eligibility was described as a time-consuming process, and the vote count was put on hold until it resumed in Detroit on March 16.


That still failed to deliver a winner as ballots were shipped back to Dayton, and the work to clear the remaining challenged ballots continued this week. The delays prompted former UAW President Bob King to urge the monitor, Neil Barofsky, to report the results as soon as possible so the winner could be sworn in ahead of the UAW bargaining convention.

The election offered a dramatic departure for the UAW, which formerly had delegates choose its top leaders at UAW conventions. Instead, delegates at the UAW convention in Detroit in July nominated candidates for office who then had to campaign.

The process was a result of the agreement between the federal government and the union stemming from the corruption scandal. UAW members and retirees were given the opportunity to choose how their top leaders were picked, and they selected the direct election process in a referendum.

Participation in the runoff exceeded that of the initial election, where five candidates were competing for the presidency. Criticism about low participation in that initial round prompted candidate Will Lehman to file a federal lawsuit, later dismissed, seeking to extend the deadline for ballots to be returned.

The independent monitor, appointed as part of a deal reached between the government and the union, reported that 141,548 ballots had been received by the deadline for the runoff, which was an increase from the 106,790 that came in for the initial election, although it was not immediately clear how many were deemed ineligible.


Both Fain and Curry offered long tenures with the union even though their backgrounds diverged.

Fain is an administrative assistant to the UAW vice president over the union’s Stellantis Department. He had been tasked with overseeing the union’s side of the transition of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center in Warren. Fain served 10 years as a UAW international representative and was a former skilled trades committeeperson and shop chair at what's now the Stellantis Kokomo Casting Plant in Indiana.

Curry was picked as president by the International Executive Board in 2021 to replace the now-retired Rory Gamble. Curry got his start with the UAW in 1992, when he was hired as a truck assembler at Freightliner Trucks in Mount Holly, North Carolina, according to the union. He previously served as Region 8 director and as secretary-treasurer, among other positions.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Fain declares victory in UAW presidential election; Curry concedes

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