Hey, I’m sure all 10 of those people pictured voted happily for the Kid Sniffer. 
The contract reverses years of efforts by GM to create lower-paid groups of UAW workers at units such as component plants, parts warehouses and electric vehicle battery operations. It puts workers at GM’s battery joint-venture with South Korea’s LG Energy under the national agreement.
The contract also restricts use of lower paid temporary workers. “We have slammed the door on having a permanent underclass of temporary workers at GM,” Fain said.
Deal addresses many concerns.
The UAW has said it is committed to organizing workforces at other carmakers, making negotiations in 2028 between the union and the “Big Five or Big Six.”
I hope those un-unionized guys are watching.
I hope so too. But a lot of non union workers buy into the crap spewed to them by their employer. That unionizing would not be a benefit to them. Couldn’t be further from the truth. If your employer is suggesting to not unionize, it’s most likely not looking out for your best interest. But people get fooled.
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In 1984 I relocated to MD, took an entry level job at an industrial service company. An operating engineering union persuaded enough hourly workers that their wages and benefits would increase substantially that a vote to unionize was to be held. This company was family owned, had made the Fortune 500, was less than 8 years old and it wasn’t unusual to be working alongside the company president who wasn’t yet 30 years old. Prior to the “union vote” the VP ( the prez’ father) gathered a group of employees together for a chat. This man was an engineer at the GM assembly plant in Baltimore and well aware of the values and downsides of union membership. His speech was quick and to the point: “If you unionize remember, you are obligated to pay union dues. To pay you what your union has promised, rates to our customers will have to raise substantially and likely we’ll lose our competitiveness and likely close the doors”.
Strong arm tactic? Maybe, the vote to unionize garnered only 2 votes , the two who influenced the act to unionize. A competitor that had organized their labor into the same union went out of business the following year.
Just my two cents.
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I have an aunt and uncle who actually lost their jobs because of their union.
The boot company got tired of the union and moved out of the country.
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Unions aren’t for everyone, or every business. If you have a skill that can command a higher wage, probably not for you. But if you’re rank and file, a no vote for a union is a vote against yourself.
Shovel jockeys where I work make a little over 34 dollars an hour. I know because I worked there before I transferred back to tolls. Guys who stick and pick garbage at rest areas make that much. The same guys that put up the sign that says, right shoulder closed. The equivalent contractors don’t make close to that. Same goes for breaks during snow storms. It’s not even in the same galaxy. Do you think I’m going to care if people have to pay higher tolls as a result?
The union dues angle is almost laughable. Between 2014 and 2019 I averaged close to 2000 a week with OT and holidays. Do you think anyone cares about an 11 dollar a week union fee? After taxes and benefits are deducted, I came home with 60% of my check. Again, 11 bucks?
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The issue the UAW will run into with the non-UAW automakers is that those companies (like Kia-Hyundai, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, and Nissan) were very strategic with where they built their plants a decade ago. In right to work states. The manufacturers have leverage in right to work states. Technically they can unionize individual plants but they can’t force the manufacturers to sign an agreement to unionize all of their plants in one go.
They’ll have to get on the factory floor and convince each plant’s work staff and managers to join the UAW. And they tended to do a poor job back in the day. They attempted to unionize Canton Nissan about six years ago. They were defeated by a 60 to 40 percent vote by the workers. From the guys I knew at that plant they chose not to join because the UAW’s guarantees weren’t much more than what they were making at that time. And they generally feared pissing Nissan corporate off for a variety of reasons. Namely Nissan could easily shut down certain lines. Like the Fromtier production line, which is where most of that plant is employed at and move it back to Smyrna, Tennessee.
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Like you said, unions aren’t for everyone. Our Dad came home from WWII and went to work in a steel mill as a bricklayer. He and the three uncles went into the construction business building homes. Dad and two uncles were Master Masons. They would lay brick, block and stone all ■■■■■■■ day unless it was too cold to mix mortar and even then they’d mix calcium into the mix just to keep that course going. Trust me, I know, I was on the job working with them starting at age 13.
A bricklayers union approached them to unionize. Not sure of the details but threats were made. Dad was a light heavyweight Divisional champ boxer in the Army. As I recall he once told whatever ■■■■■■■ was on the other end of the phone to meet him anywhere anytime. I worked with our Dad until he died in 1971 when I was 19.
Those were the best times of my lifetime.
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https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/toyota-raises-uaw-strike-ford-gm
Toyota spokesman Scott Vazin confirmed Tuesday in an email to Axios that the automaker “did provide wage increases today” for workers at all of its U.S. plants.
Nice. Union efforts have AoE.
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He’s a perfect example of not needing a union. Even today trades make much less in a union. But today, unlike years ago, it’s steady work, even if you’re getting paid much less.
My wife was in management for Verizon. So she wasn’t union, but the people that worked for her were. That raised her pay. She wanted to transfer closer to home, but Verizon wireless wasn’t union. Those supervisors made less than half what she was making.
This is a very good thing for labor.
We should all applaud that people are paid a better wage.
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Not everyone will though.
If I wouldn’t get fired immediately (right to work state so we can be fired for any reason other than gender, sexual orientation, or race) I’d start my own parts retail union.
But I know the second I did something like that I’d be fired in 15 seconds.
It’s a very good thing for rank and file employees. But some people don’t see it that way.
I worked in the semiconductor processing equipment industry. One of my Customers was Delco Electronics (Owned by GM). Our equipment specification was more than 96% uptime. They had a big party when they hit 35% uptime. It was hell working there because I would have to wait for the various union labor folks. A part change which I could do in under five minutes would take more then five hours. And if I went around the Union folks they would have kicked me out the door. So the one thing I discovered was why American built cars are so expensive.
At my job we are non-union. The flight attendants voted for a union (actually only 8 did but that is a different story) that was over a year ago. We the pilots have gotten 3 raises since then and many new quality of life stuff. The FAs zip because the union reps won’t let them during negotiations. It will probably be 1-2 years before they get a contract and no doubt the pilots will get more raises. Hopefully their contract is worth it.
With details still being finalized, it remains to be seen how damaging these agreements will be to the U.S. But if the UAW is happy with the terms, it’s likely that they could have detrimental impacts on the U.S. economy and workforce for generations.
While the author is not a current Republican congressman, he was one as recently as 2019.
It’s a nice little reminder. The gulf between the Democrats and Republicans on anything labor is huge.
sure your 3 year old airline got 3 pay raise within the last year…but how much of that is because unionized regionals and majors have been passing huge pay raise over the past couple of years and thus the giant sucking sound from the legacies mean that every single 135 carrier, fractional, and LLC need to follow suit and have been to capture the ever dwindling pool of experienced aviators?
No different then for FAs. They would have gotten pay raises also. We have hundreds of flight attendants. Around a hundred during the vote, but only 15 were allowed to vote, vote was 8 to 7. They need better pay and benefits no doubt but they all should have been allowed to vote.
If the negotiations were from the base at the start I would have no problems with it. But they will reset the base if they give them a raise now. They have also sued to stop anything else like a mentor program claiming it was a ploy to undermine them which is laughable. If all of them vote it in then fine, I have no problem with it.
Being a new airline they are barely profitable on some quarters.
a bit different the the FA actually, there is no major FA shortage, legacies are able to keep hiring and training brand new FA with no prior experience, nor has the past couple of years been a rush of mainline FA contracts adopted.
the exact opposite of the pilot and dispatchers
btw how you enjoy the 73 vs the prior types? i cant remembers if you guy still fly the classics like Swift or the next gens
all that is true but in my belief, costs for heavy turn over which could be curtaied with pay raises. It is my belief if they got pay raises that would have happened. Don’t get me wrong they deserve much better pay and work rules. I could not do what they do without going to jail for punching someone .
I luv my job and just finished Captain upgrade today. We fly the NG 700’s and 800’s
I agree they need a union, just disagree with the tactics the union is using.
