The UAW remains committed to the process laid out in the Consent Decree that our union entered into in 2020. Prior to the Consent Decree, our union had started implementing ethical and financial reforms, and the pace of change has not abated as we must restore full confidence in our union. We are ready to move forward with the International Executive Board elections as outlined in the Monitor’s official rule

The Monitor’s Notice of 2022 UAW Election can be found here.

Last year, the UAW and Ford partnered to combat the shortage of personal protective equipment and medical supplies across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. UAW members volunteered to return to work in order to produce masks, ventilators, and other supplies to combat the spread of the virus. Since then, the partnership has provided 120 million masks to first responders, schools, local governments and organizations across the country. In addition, they have distributed 22.5 million face shields, 50,000 ventilators, 32,000 respirators and 1.6 million isolation gowns. This equipment continues to protect essential workers and communities across the country. We applaud the UAW members who helped to make it happen.

Check out these tweets from people across the country who have been impacted by these donations:

PRESENTED BY 18TH ANNUAL WWJ WINTER SURVIVAL RADIOTHON

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021 | 5 A.M. – 7 P.M.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.THAWFUNDEVENTS.ORG
RADIOTHON DONATIONS 888.579.4950

Returning for the 18th year, The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW) will partner with WWJ Newsradio 950 for the Winter Survival Radiothon on February 12, 2021. Since 2003, listeners have helped raise over $20 million for THAW families!

For 35 years, THAW has been a leading provider of utility assistance statewide and has distributed over 250 million dollars in assistance to over 275,000 households. Every winter, families struggle to keep their heat and electricity on. This winter is no different, and the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many to remain home and consume
additional heat, electricity, and water for remote work and learning.

The Winter Survival Radiothon includes:

  • Radio personalities highlighting THAW’s work throughout the state.
  • Personal stories and reflections from families benefiting from THAW’s services.
  • Incentives for call-in donors.
  • An online auction February 8 – February 15.
  • The new Power Forward Emerging Leaders Council

For more information, contact Liz Klos at [email protected] or 313.348.3108.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

Ray Curry, Secretary-Treasurer, UAW

What is the distance a good deed can travel? What does a warm bowl of soup mean? What does a warm bed mean? A new bike or a kind gesture from a stranger?

All these things are small in and of themselves, but the smallest gesture to someone in need can move all the markers. If you are cold and someone offers you a warm sleeping bag, is there a measure for that? If you are hungry, and someone gives you a warm meal, how far does that go? To anyone who has suffered, who has been in need or has seen their children go hungry, how far does a helping hand go? I would say it reaches all of us — it goes all the way to making the world a better place.

Read the full article on blackpressusa.com >>>

Photo by Sarah Joseph

On Saturday, Earth Day, tens of thousands of people participated in the March for Science at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and numerous other cities across the U.S.  Among the participants in Washington were hundreds of UAW members who rallied behind the mission of the event and spent the day celebrating science.

Local 2110 at the March for Science
Photo by Catherine Braine

The passionate crowd gathered to generate a conversation about the alarming trend toward discrediting facts and scientific consensus, and restricting scientific discovery.

Sarah Joseph, a UAW Local 2110 member from the Department of Genetics at Columbia University, had a very personal reason for participating in the March for Science.  “I march because without science I would not have been born.  I was conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization), and I march because without science many of my family members would not be alive today.

“I am participating to raise awareness for science and to dispel the misconception that there is such a thing as ‘your’ facts.  Facts are facts.  It is the interpretation of facts that is up for debate,” said Joseph.

The March for Science champions and defends science and scientific integrity, but it is a small step in the process toward encouraging the application of science in policy.  March for Science organizers and participants say the best way to ensure science will influence policy is to encourage people to appreciate and engage with science. That can only happen through education, communication and ties of mutual respect between scientists and their communities — the paths of communication must go both ways. There has too long been a divide between the scientific community, the public and the politicians who represent them.

Local 2110 poses at March for Science
  Photo by Catherine Braine

“I’m marching because I think it’s immoral for politicians to deny the basic fact of climate change when they have the chance to change that,” said Catherine Braine, a UAW Local 2110 member from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University.

“I am also a graduate student whose research is funded by NIH (National Institutes of Health), the organization the Trump budget wants to cut by 20 percent,” Braine added.  “It’s important for everyone to be involved because everyone should push for policies that acknowledge objective reality and seek to be responsible guardians of the Earth.”

As debates continue in Washington over funding of science, Saturday’s event sent a very clear message to politicians: Back up your reasons for doubting scientific evidence and, more important, back off science funding!

State of Michigan workers won a 3 percent wage increase in 2017 and a 2 percent increase for 2018 in their contract that had reopener language to discuss wage increases and health care.

“The bargaining team was successful not only in winning the two wage increases, but we also defended our health care and kept the plan as is,” said Local 6000 President Ed Mitchell.

Local 6000, which represents 15,000 state workers in administrative support and human services functions, ratified the agreement by a 98 percent margin in November. The contract expires Dec. 31, 2018.

Negotiators discussed the effect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on their health care and the potential for the plan being subject to the ACA’s excise tax. However, because of the uncertainty surrounding the tax and the entire ACA, it was decided that any changes would be discussed and implemented through the parties’ Joint Health Care Committee, with an eye toward finding ways to keep costs under the excise tax threshold.

UAW-NYU Graduate Employees Approve Only Contract Covering Private Sector Graduate Employees

The United Auto Workers announced today the ratification of the contract with New York University which covers over 1200 graduate employees,
members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee-UAW Local 2110, who perform various functions for the university including teaching and  research.  Once again, this  makes NYU the only private university in  the country with a unionized graduate employee workforce.  The agreement was ratified by 99% of the membership, with nearly 1,000 members voting.

“This contract is a major step forward for our members,” said Julie Kushner, Director of UAW Region 9A.  “They did not back down after being stripped of their bargaining rights in 2005.Their commitment to justice will have a huge impact on  the working lives of teaching and research  assistants throughout the university. This victory has already inspired other private sector graduate employees to organize.”

The agreement made substantial gains in wages, health care, including a 90% subsidy towards individual coverage and first time support for dependent coverage, childcare benefits and tuition waivers.  In addition, it doubles the starting wage to $20 per hour over the life of the five-year agreement for workers at NYU’s Polytechnic School of Engineering, who perform and support cutting edge research. (Greater detail is appended below.)

“This contract will make a real difference in our lives here at NYU, and will raise the bar for private sector graduate working people nationally,” said Lily Defriend, a Ph.D candidate in the Anthropology Department. “Right here in New York City our campaign and this contract win have contributed to graduate employees at Columbia and The New School organizing at the UAW.”

After being the first group of private university graduate workers to successfully unionize in 2000, the UAW won a groundbreaking contract at NYU.  In 2005 the university withdrew recognition, hiding behind a Bush-era NLRB decision stripping graduate employees of the right to collective bargaining.  Undeterred, the workers at NYU fought an eight year battle for recognition and the university agreed to recognize the UAW once again subject to an election, in which they remained neutral, conducted by the American Arbitration Association.  The workers voted 98.4% in favor of being represented by the UAW in December 2013.

The UAW represents more than 45,000 academic workers across the U.S., including graduate employees at the University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, University of Washington, University of California and California State University.