49,000 United Auto Worker members went on strike on Sept. 16 against General Motors, in the largest walkout there since 2007. While most plants are in the Midwest, they are also in Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, Tennessee and Missouri.
GM cuts healthcare benefits for workers, as strike enters 4th day. This induces workers to get more angry. GM thinks this will scare them or get them to rethink the cost of their benefits. It's going to backfire. It's quick, rash and insensitive.
The United Auto Workers said on Sunday that a nationwide strike will begin before midnight. The move comes after the union and General Motors failed to agree on a new contract.
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GM recently declared that it will close three major assembly and two smaller transmission facilities in North America. This despite GM’s recent robust profit reports - while labor costs make up less than 10 percent of the average vehicle.
Continuing our dependence on unaccountable corporations, without the ability to enforce job guarantees, making competitiveness the only test of worthwhile activity, looking to ‘better’ free trade agreements, are dead ends -- death by a thousand cuts.
With the Lordstown GM plant closing, the idea of tackling worker alienation, behind workers 1972 "industrial Woodstock," seems lost. The measure of that loss is in news that the US death rate is rising due to suicide and drug overdose.
Ten organizations representing over 25,000 Mexican workers announced on 13 July the imminent creation of a Federation of Democratic and Independent Unions in the automotive sector.
Since the early 1900s and before, Black workers have not viewed labor unions and labor organizing as separate from the rest of their lives and have fought for union politics that reflect that understanding.
A labor activist reflects on the United Autoworkers’ (UAW’s) crushing defeat at a Mississipi Nissan plant last week.
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