Reflecting on the Big Three Contract Campaign

When most of us think about organizing, we often think of going into non-union shops and organizing workers to join the UAW. While that is true, it can also mean organizing our existing union members, and getting them active in our collective fight. For Big Three workers and members of Local 230 going into bargaining this year, we knew that we needed a significant wage increase, a cost-of-living allowance (COLA), the end to an abusive tiered wage system, and the end of the abusive system that kept supplemental employees (temporary workers) working on a temporary status with no real rights and no hire date in sight.


Our contract campaign was huge in the months and weeks leading up to the strike. At the national level, UAW President Shawn Fain & his team were great at keeping members up to date through Facebook Live and news outlets. At the local level, we were hard at work building unity and coordination. Some of the ways we showed solidarity included what we called a Red-Out – wearing only red shirts in solidarity. Another way was organizing members to not work any voluntary overtime in the days leading up to Local 230 being called on to walk off the job. Both of these methods showed management that we were no longer divided and that we weren’t going down without a fight.


On September 15 at 12:00 am, the Big Three walked off the job. The following week, all the PDCs across Stellantis and GM were called to walk off their jobs, and thus, Local 230 was out on strike, along with Locals 6645, 2162, and 492. Our Local 230 President Jesse Ramirez walked out side by side with approximately 55 first shift Local 230 members. Our message was clear: “No deals, No wheels.”


In the following weeks, we organized rallies on the picket lines. These rallies were key for keeping members’ morale up, building a strong sense of camaraderie, and relieving the stress of the strike. In addition to social media and local news coverage, the rallies were extremely sharp tools used to gain public support and to keep our fight and demands as pervasive as possible. Many supporters came out and walked the line, including Teamsters, SAG-AFTRA, Carpenters Union, Machinist Union, as well as State Senators, Assembly Members, and members of the United States Congress.


Our efforts would soon pay off: On October 28th the strike was declared over, and members returned to work the following Monday. The contract was ratified on November 20th, 2023. Workers emerged victorious knowing we, the UAW, had won.



Joel Benefield is a member of UAW Local 230 in Ontario, CA. The local represents workers at the Stellantis Parts Distribution Center in Los Angeles.

UAW President Shawn Fain to Speak at Detroit MLK Day Rally and March on January 15

UAW President Shawn Fain will speak at the 21st Detroit Martin Luther King Day Rally and March on January 15, 2024, at 12 pm ET.

Location: St. Matthew’s-St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, 8850 Woodard Avenue at Holbrook

Date & Time: Mon. Jan. 15, 2024, 12pm-3:00pm ET

Theme: “For Jobs, Peace, and Justice, while protecting Water, Climate, and Communities.

The Detroit MLK Day Committee has been organizing this event on the federal holiday commemorating the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the past twenty years. This year’s event comes amid a heightening struggle for labor rights and against imperialist war across the United States and the world.

The rally and march will feature speakers and artists from the Detroit area highlighting the wealth of community organizers and cultural workers in southeastern Michigan. A broad coalition of these social forces is very much needed in the coming year to meet the challenging facing the people of the city, the country, and the globe. 

The current period has been characterized by widespread strikes in various sectors of the economy including unions representing autoworkers, heath care practitioner, writers, actors, entertainment workers, educators, and service employees. During the last few months, Detroit has been labelled “Strike City” because of the work stoppages involving tens of thousands of workers. Being honored is the increasing militant posture of working people, a tradition in which the city was built upon.

Labor unions are encouraged to participate in this event along with their rank-and-file members to symbolize the necessity of organizing and mobilizing the majority of people in order to achieve genuine democracy and economic rights.

From the Archives: the UAW Express

In the latest installment of From the Archives, Gavin Strassel, UAW Archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library, unboxes a toy train set made by UAW workers in Mount Clemons, Michigan.

“The UAW Express was built by Lionel, whose employees in Michigan were represented by the UAW,” Strassel explains in the video. “UAW members at Lionel factories at their peak were making 250,000 train sets a year. If you lined those train sets up, front to back, they would nearly stretch across the entire state of Michigan.”

Various iterations of the Lionel brand have been producing toy trains since 1900.

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Postdocs Reach Tentative Agreement with Mount Sinai

Postdoctoral Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York reached a tentative agreement with the administration on Monday, December 18.

“We are very proud to have won many substantive and important improvements in every major area we set as a priority,” the Sinai Postdoctoral Organizing Committee (SPOC-UAW) Bargaining Commitee wrote on the unit’s website after the agreement was reached. “These gains are the direct result of tireless organizing, nearly 16 months of bargaining, and our powerful historic strike. Together, we fought, and we won.”

The Bargaining Committee will conduct a straw poll to gain feedback from members before deciding whether workers should continue or pause the strike while voting on the tentative agreement takes place.

Workers at the institution walked out on an unfair labor practice strike on December 6, after attempts to reach a deal with Mount Sinai administrators were unsuccessful.

“We love our research, but Sinai is leaving us no choice,” said Andrea Joseph, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, when the strike began. “Our priority has always been ensuring that science at Mount Sinai is sustainable and inclusive, and that means fair pay and housing and parental benefits that allow all of us to take care of our families and stay in the careers we love in New York City.”

In June of 2022, nearly 90% of workers voted to choose Sinai Postdoctoral Organizing Committee-United Auto Workers (SPOC-UAW) as their union and bargaining representative.

Postdocs perform a wide range of critical research, from developing new therapies to fight disease to advancing new technologies that will shape the future of research, and much more.

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Why The Renewable Energy Industry Needs Unionizing

The COP28 climate summit recognized we are at “the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era and need to speed up transition to renewable energy. But union-busting by renewables companies, including the top solar provider on Long Island, threatens to slow it down.

Renewables are big business in the US, stoked by many tens of billions in federal funding. But insiders know that renewables companies are often chaotic, with underpaid, demoralized workers, unsustainably high turnover, and difficult, dangerous working conditions. Solar installers’ median income is just under $45,000 — 40% less than fossil fuel workers. Getting off fossil fuel will require fixing the renewables industry’s labor problems, which requires unions.

Historically, organized labor grew up with fossil fuel industries. At their peak, unions represented 60% of autoworkers. Today it’s about 16%, and 17% across the fossil fuel sector. But only 4% US solar workers and 6% of wind power workers are in unions, reflecting how fiercely renewables companies oppose them.

Big federal subsidies and tax credits compound the problem. Renewables companies are exempt from prevailing wage and other labor requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if they stay below utility scale (25 megawatts a year). So, the more they cut costs and squeeze workers, the more of the IRA money they can pocket, and the easier it is to spend money on union-busting. That is a perverse incentive effectively diverting public resources to private gain while hurting workers and limiting how fast renewables grow.

EmPower Solar, a Bethpage, NY-based solar company serving Long Island, is a case in point. Rather than pay its workers fairly, it pays lawyers and lobbyists to prevent them from organizing. It hired the Cincinnatti-based lobbying firm National Labor Relations Advocates, which advertises a 90% success rate at helping clients “avoid any threat of a union coming into your business,” and charges hefty fees for the service.

EmPower faces unionization because of its labor practices. It pays installers low base wages plus an untransparent per-panel bonus. Typical monthly take-home pay might be around $2500 plus a $1200 bonus, but the bonus is unreliable. It falls in slower seasons and can be heavily docked for such things as breaking a lamp. There are cases where the bonus suddenly tanked, and installers had to rely on friends and family for rent and food. Some skipped meals and lost weight. Many installers are in debt because the job does not pay enough to live on.

EmPower foremen are paid little better than installers, and often take second jobs like driving for Uber. While they worry about their crews’ safety on rooftops around high voltage equipment, they also worry about making their car payment. When accidents happen, foremen are scapegoated and penalized with demotion and pay cuts, as if it is their supervision at fault rather than unsafe company practices.

Quick to cut pay, EmPower is slow to raise it. It lacks a clear, accountable compensation structure, delays performance reviews, and has high turnover, so workers who keep their jobs often stay stuck at or near entry-level pay. It is also slow to reimburse their outlays for driving to jobsites.

EmPower hires workers for the peak summer season, then fires them, often after a month, and in some cases as little as two weeks. Workers are so stressed and insecure about getting laid off that they are afraid to take lunchbreaks or refuse dangerous jobs they should not accept. When they brought their concerns to management, they got canned talk-points from its union-busting lawyers instead of action.

Finally, after watching Shawn Fain and the UAW stand up and get results for auto workers, EmPower workers reached out to the UAW Local 259, which agreed to represent them. It filed a notice of election with the National Labor Relations Board last month. EmPower workers vote on unionizing this Friday.

Since the filing, the company changed tactics. It said it cared about worker concerns, the layoffs stopped, the compensation problems improved a little. But this only happened once the workers got organized. It seems tactical, designed to peel off support to swing the vote against a union.

Another tactic is EmPower’s false claim the UAW is a “bad fit” because its workers do not build cars. But the truth is, the company would fight any union. The UAW had famous successes at Big Three car companies, but it is a fallacy to pigeonhole unions in the old manufacturing, fossil-fuel based economy. They are more relevant and needed than ever for the high-tech economy and renewables ramp-up. Today’s UAW represents technicians, National Institutes of Health scientists, defense workers, office workers, environmental workers, and more. It can and should do for renewables workers what it did for autoworkers.

Working in renewables could be a great job, but the industry needs a healthier balance of power between management and labor to make growth sustainable. These are the jobs of the future. They ought to pay a living wage, be safe, and be unionized.

In solidarity,

Daniel Lozano, Installer, EmPower Solar

Michael DiGiuseppe, Vice President, Local 259

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Researchers at National Institutes of Health Vote to Unionize by Nearly 98%

In a historic outcome, early-career researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, have voted by nearly 98% to form a union, NIH Fellows United-UAW. 1,601 workers voted in favor of unionizing, with only thirty-six voting against.

This is the first union within the U.S. federal government for research fellows, which includes postbaccalaureate, predoctoral, and postdoctoral researchers.

“We won our union!” NIH Fellows United-UAW announced on the social media platform X after the voting process was completed. “We are the largest union of federal employees to form in more than a decade, and the first union of Fellows ever at a federal research facility. We’ve made history together.”

In June of this year, workers filed with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to form their union. In July, the NIH questioned the legal standing of fellows unionizing, submitting paperwork to the FLRA stating many of the potential union members weren’t employees and thus, didn’t have the right to form a union. The following month, NIH dropped opposition, paving the way for the vote.

Improved pay and working conditions and enhanced protections against harassment and excessive workloads are the primary issues workers would like to see addressed in a first contract between their union and the NIH.

“I’d like to welcome the NIH unit to the UAW,” Region 8 Director Tim Smith said. “I am looking forward to meeting and shaking the hands of each and every one of these new members. We will stand hand-in-hand to achieve a contract that helps them build a better life. They may be the first union in Region 8 for government researchers, but working together, it won’t be the last.”

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Volkswagen Workers, Faith Coalition, and UAW President Shawn Fain to Visit Chattanooga Plant to Demand VW Stop Union-Busting; Union Files New Federal Labor Charges Against Unlawful VW Policies

Chattanooga, Tenn. — At noon on Monday, December 18th, UAW President Shawn Fain will accompany a delegation of Volkswagen workers and community and faith leaders to deliver a letter to Volkswagen management demanding the company end its union-busting and intimidation, as workers organize to join the UAW. 

“These workers at your plant are our neighbors, congregants, family, and friends, and we applaud them for having the courage to demand better for themselves and our community,” reads the letter from CALEB (Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence), a community and faith coalition advocating for economic justice in Chattanooga. “However, we are deeply concerned by the stories Chattanooga workers have shared with us regarding Volkswagen’s efforts to stop them—in some cases illegally—from exercising their rights.” 
 
On Monday, December 11, Volkswagen workers filed federal unfair labor practice charges against Volkswagen for illegally intimidating, interfering with, and spying on pro-union workers. 

Today, VW workers are filing another federal labor charge against the company for unlawful company policies concerning social media, dress code, and flyering that have a chilling effect on workers’ rights to stand up and speak out publicly about their working conditions and the need to unionize. 

Volkswagen’s illegal actions come on the heels of the UAW announcing that well over 1,000 workers, making up over 30 percent of the Chattanooga plant, have signed union cards as part of a national movement of non-union autoworkers organizing to join the UAW in the wake of the union’s record contract victories at Ford, GM, and Stellantis. 

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Sign the Petition: Ask the DOE to Ensure the Continued Use of Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel

UAW Local 3033 and Cleveland Cliffs Butler Facility in Pennsylvania is the only United States manufacturer of Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel (GOES), the metal found in electrical distribution transformers.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is in the process of a proposed rulemaking concerning efficiency standards. Part of that standard will be the use of GOES vs. amorphous metal (AM). GOES is the most efficient steel in high-volume distribution.

AM cores are imported by foreign countries. With no domestic supplier of AM cores, our electrical grids will be reliant on an imported supply chain, potentially causing shipping issues that will limit our country’s ability to respond when unforeseen circumstances impact our electrical grid.

We urge you to sign this petition asking the DOE to proceed with a standard that ensures the continued use of the GOES in distribution transformers.

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Graduate Student Workers at USC Vote to Ratify First-Ever Contract with University

Over 80% of Graduate Student Workers at the University of Southern California (USC) have voted to ratify a first-ever contract.

The Graduate Student Workers Organizing Committee, GSWOC-UAW, announced the results on their website and the social media platform X on December 7, after three days of voting had concluded.

The agreement includes significant wage increases, lump sum bonuses for every graduate worker and arbitrable protections from harassment and discrimination. The deal also ends the university’s ability to implement wage freezes.

“I am incredibly proud of this contract and all the work that went into it,” said Maile McCann, a PhD Candidate in the Civil Engineering department and bargaining team member. “Together, thousands of GSWs built a credible strike threat that forced USC admin to reach a deal that sets a new standard for compensation and workplace protections, both at USC and across the country.”

“I would say that we are all really excited about this contract because in the private sector we have an industry leading contract that sets us up for bargaining in years to come,” Jackie Johnson, a fifth-year doctoral candidate studying cinema and media studies, told the Daily Trojan. “I think that sends a real message about the strength of the graduate student workers at USC, as we see a wave of unionization across higher education.”

“Graduate Student Workers at USC power the research and instruction that makes the university run, but for far too long, they have not had sufficient input into their working conditions,” said Region 6 Director Mike Miller. “Through the power of their collective action and strike threat, Graduate Student Workers moved the USC Administration to meet their demands for a strong first contract that will make the university more inclusive and equitable. This campaign is part of a growing surge of militant organizing in higher ed and will be an inspiration to many more to follow.”

The bargaining team and the university first reached a tentative agreement on November 26, just one day before workers were set to strike and after nearly eight months of negotiations.

GSWOC-UAW represents 3,400 workers at USC. Workers voted by 93% to form their union in February of this year.

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From the Archives: Leonard Woodcock

In a new video, Gavin Strassel, UAW Archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University, shares historical items that belonged to UAW President, Leonard Woodcock.

Woodcock served as president from 1970 to 1977. He was elected by the International Executive Board after the untimely death of Walter Reuther in a plane crash on May 9, 1970. Only a few months after he assumed office, Woodcock led 400,000 autoworkers on a 67-day strike against General Motors. It was the first time the union had taken on GM in a quarter century. By the end of the strike, the UAW had won significant wage increases, better healthcare, an end to caps on cost-of-living allowances and the ability for workers to retire with a full pension after thirty years of service, regardless of their age.

After retiring from the UAW in 1977, Woodcock was appointed head of the United States Liaison Office in Bejing by US President Jimmy Carter.

“Leonard Woodcock was such a skilled negotiator as UAW president, U.S. President Carter made him the top diplomat for the United States and China,” Strassel says. “He was able to use his skills and work with Deng Xiaoping (China’s deputy prime minister) to bring the two countries together and normalize relations, in what was known as one of the biggest diplomatic feats of the 1970s.”

In the video, Strassel showcases a porcelain seal that hung above the front entrance of the US Liaison’s office in Bejing during Woodcock’s time there, as well as a US flag that flew outside the office until it closed.

“These items are important reminders of the global impact of the UAW,” Strassel says.

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