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Two big Kansas City winners were honored at the White House on Monday.
Along with the Super Bowl LVII Champion Kansas City Chiefs, President Joe Biden welcomed brand-new UAW member Hafsa Sheikh-Hussein. She was there representing over 400 workers at the Yanfeng plant outside Kansas City in Riverside, MO., who voted to join UAW Local 710 last month.
Yanfeng workers organized to put an end to low pay, lack of seniority rights, understaffed shifts, and little to no work-life balance at the facility.
“Winning our union was a big deal and getting to celebrate it with the Super Bowl champions made it even more special,” said Sheikh-Hussein, who works as a quality technician at Yanfeng in Riverside. “Just like the Chiefs’ victory lifted up Kansas City, the improvements we win in a first contract are going to make life better for our whole community.”
Biden honored the Chiefs in a ceremony on the White House lawn and invited both Sheikh-Hussein and UAW Region 4 Director Brandon Campbell.
“During the ceremony, the Chiefs talked about the adversity they faced during the season,” said Director Campbell. “How it was unity that allowed them to rise above it—unity and teamwork. That’s so true in our world too. The Yanfeng workers won big because they were united.”
After the event, both Campbell and Sheik-Hussein met briefly with the President. “I was shaking his hand,” Sheikh-Hussein said, “and when I told him I was UAW, his face lit up and his handshake got even stronger.”
“I’ve been with the UAW my whole life,” the President responded. “[The UAW was] the first union to endorse me when I was a 29-year-old kid running for the Senate.”
“Hafsa and Yanfeng workers won big, and it’s great that President Biden honored their victory. But we could have some big losses in the Midwest if our elected officials don’t fight for strong EV job protections and also to keep good jobs at Master Lock in Milwaukee, Oshkosh Truck and Stellantis in Belvidere,” Director Campbell said, referring to three UAW worksites currently under threat of major job loss.
With the victory at Yanfeng in Riverside, UAW members have now organized six Yanfeng plants in North America. Over 1,000 UAW members work at the supplier in Highland Park, Romulus, and Monroe, Michigan, Mississauga, Ontario, McCalla, Alabama, and at Riverside. The Riverside plant produces parts for the General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, represented by UAW Local 31.
Hundreds will gather for a strike kickoff rally at 12pm on Red Square.
Seattle, WA – 2,400 UW Postdoctoral Researchers and Research Scientists/Engineers (RSEs) at the University of Washington are on strike after not reaching agreement with UW administration in bargaining. They will head to the picket lines beginning at 5am. Hundreds will gather Wednesday for a strike kickoff rally at 12pm on Red Square. Press are encouraged to attend.
“We love our research but UW left us no choice. We will be striking until we get a fair contract. Our priority has always been ensuring that science at UW is sustainable and inclusive, and that means fair pay so we can all afford rent, take care of our families, and stay in the careers we love,” said Rebecca Bluett, Postdoctoral Scholar at UW.
“Today Postdocs, Researchers, members of the UW community, and community at large are standing together to hold the UW administration accountable. Through our collective action, we hope to compel them to bargain in good faith, so we can finally address the urgent issues we face as researchers committed to our careers in science and research,” said Levin Kim, President of UAW 4121, the union of Postdocs, RSEs and Academic Student Employees at UW.
Picket locations are as follows (see map below):
- NE 45th St & Memorial Way NE (SW corner)
- 15th Ave NE & W Stevens Way NE (NE corner)
- Montlake Triangle: NE Pacific St & Montlake Blvd NE
- SLU: Mercer St (between 8th and 9th Ave N)
At issue still for RSEs are three core demands: support for an inclusive workforce—including the same harassment prevention program for RSEs that is available for Postdocs and student employees, support for childcare, and fair compensation. For Postdocs, the biggest sticking point is that UW is refusing to pay Postdocs a living wage in line with state minimum wage standards.
The impacts of the strike will be felt across the university system and beyond. There are 6,000 Academic Student Employees, graduate students who work as Research and Teaching Assistants at UW, who have been pledging to respect the picket lines. The MLK Labor Council sanctioned the strike, as did the Joint Council for Teamsters 28. Collectively these labor organizations represent over 100,000 workers in King County, who will be receiving information about the strike and be urged to not cross the picket line.
Research Scientists/Engineers (RSEs) and Postdocs perform a wide range of critical research, from developing new therapies to fight disease, designing policy to tackle climate change, advancing new technologies that will shape the future of research, and much more. Postdocs and RSEs are part of UAW 4121, the union of just shy of 1,500 staff researchers, 900 Postdocs, and over 6,000 Academic Student Employees at UW.
Each unit has been in bargaining with the UW administration for months—Postdocs are negotiating a successor agreement and these are initial contract negotiations for RSEs, who won their union one year ago on June 10.
Updates will be shared as they become available.
In 100 days, contracts expire for 150,000 autoworkers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. UAW members are gearing up to win big for working class communities across the country.
This contract fight will be the UAW’s defining moment as the auto industry transitions to electric vehicles. We’re setting a new standard, and members are united in the fight for our core demands:
- Ending wage and benefit tiers that divide workers
- Bringing back cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA)
- Job security when companies are making record profits
- Building a sustainable future for workers who build electric vehicles
The Big Three have made a quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits in the past 10 years, while autoworkers still endure Great Recession-era wages and benefits. UAW autoworkers saved the auto industry 15 years ago and were never made whole.
It’s time for the Big Three to make it right.
We need your help to make sure they do.
Can we count on you?
WATCH: UAW members are back in the fight! https://youtu.be/r71X1Mee7nY
CNBC: UAW Union Outlines Demands Ahead of Critical Negotiations with Detroit Automakers
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/uaw-negotiation-demands-ahead-of-detroit-automaker-talks.html
This week, top officers of the UAW participated in the union’s first-ever Unionwide Town Hall, themed “Back in the Fight: Our Generation’s Defining Moment at the Big Three.”
The National Town Hall is a new addition to the UAW constitution, passed by delegates at the 2022 Constitutional Convention, “to ensure an open flow of information and better communication with the UAW’s active and retired membership.”
President Shawn Fain laid out the union’s position towards the Detroit automakers. “These companies have been extraordinarily profitable, and our members have created incredible value for these companies during some really hard, and dangerous years,” Fain said. “They can afford our demands, and we expect them to pony up.”
Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock noted, “These companies can afford all of our demands. Since the Great Recession, as a result of our members’ hard work, the Big Three have been amassing an ocean of money.”
Vice President Rich Boyer spoke about the need to end the tier system in the upcoming contracts. “Tiers weaken us and undermine our solidarity by dividing us in our workplaces. Tiers must come to an end.”
Discussing the need to win back the reinstatement of COLA, Vice President Chuck Browning stated, “Inflation has gone up three times as much as our wages in the past three and a half years. That’s unacceptable, and unsustainable.”
Vice President Mike Booth spoke on the union prioritizing job security during the transition to electric vehicles. “It must be a just transition. That means workers aren’t left behind. The transition must do right by our members, our families, and our communities.”
On June 1, 2009, General Motors filed for bankruptcy. To commemorate the 14th anniversary of that event, UAW Vice President Mike Booth issued the following statement:
“Fourteen years ago this week, General Motors filed for bankruptcy. It was a scary moment for the auto industry, for our country, and for auto workers everywhere. The federal government, the American taxpayer, and – more than anyone – the auto workers rallied to save the iconic company.
Auto workers had their wages slashed, lost their retirement security, gave up their job security, had their cost-of-living adjustments suspended. We gave up so much to save this company. And it wasn’t just UAW members who took the hit — it was our families, our communities, and the whole middle class of this great nation.
In the 14 years since that moment, GM has fully bounced back. Last year, GM ranked number 25 on the Fortune 500. In the past decade, the company has made over $100 billion dollars in profit in North America.
You know who hasn’t bounced back? The US autoworker. We still live with the two-tier wage and benefits system. We still don’t have cost-of-living adjustments in a time of historic inflation. We still suffer from plant closures and an uncertain future, even when business is booming.
We’ve waited long enough. It’s time to make whole the auto workers who sacrificed to save this industry. That’s why we’re fighting for a fair contract at GM, Ford, and Stellantis in 2023.”
Bethesda, Maryland – Today, 4,800 early-career researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) filed to form their union, NIH Fellows United-UAW. This is the first union within the U.S. federal government for research fellows, which includes postbaccalaureate, predoctoral, and postdoctoral researchers.
The NIH is the largest biomedical research institution in the world, and fellows’ work is integral to the development of technologies and treatments to enhance public health. Workers cited ongoing issues around low pay, a lack of support for early-career researchers, and the need for a voice at work as reasons for their collective action.
They rallied today as they celebrated this milestone and then traveled to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to file for their union.
“Fellows don’t have any voice or power in this institution, so it feels like we’re cheap labor rather than equal members of a team,” said Travis Kinder, Research Fellow at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). “The changes we need at the NIH and in the world cannot be done alone and require us to work collectively.”
Statement from UAW President Shawn Fain on Mercedes Alabama Vote
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Attend the 2024 International UAW Women’s and TOP Conference, August 25 – 30