HYUNDAI WORKERS STAND UP!
WE’RE HYUNDAI. WE’RE UAW.
AND WE’RE READY TO STAND UP.
Hyundai workers aren’t waiting to Stand Up. Here in Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, we are helping to lead the Stand Up Movement. Over 30% of us have signed union cards, a key first step in forming our union. We’re joining together to win our fair share of Hyundai’s record pretax profits—$13.5 billion in 2023. Profits we made but don’t share in. No matter where we work, it’s time that record profits mean record contracts.
STAND UP & SIGN YOUR UNION CARD!
UAW autoworkers just won historic raises at the Big Three: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Now it’s our turn.
We are forming a union with the UAW. Together, we’ll have the power to win better pay, better benefits and a better life.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
What’s a union, and how does it work?
A union is any group of workers who come together to collectively advocate and bargain for their rights at work. Unions have legal rights — and more importantly — the strength in numbers, to win improvements at work. Unions are run by and for the members, who vote on contracts, on leadership, and decide how the union operates. When you form a union, the union is YOU and your coworkers. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is a national union that has been around for nearly 90 years, improving wages, benefits, working conditions, and rights on the job for autoworkers and all kinds of workers across the country.
How do we form a union at our workplace?
There are lots of ways to unionize under the law, but they all involve building a majority of support among your coworkers for a union. That means talking to your coworkers about their issues, listening to concerns, and making a plan to come together in common cause for a better life on the job. You and your coworkers are the union – so you’ll need to talk to your coworkers about the issues they care about, in order to build majority support for a union.
What’s a union authorization card?
A union card, or union authorization card, is a card you sign to show you support forming a union in your workplace. There are different legal paths to forming a union, but one involved going through the National Labor Relations Board. If enough of you and your coworkers sign a union card, you can hold a vote. If a majority vote “yes,” you’ve won your union! But often times, corporations and management will fight the unionization process – they don’t want to have to increase wages or benefits, or give you the rights on the job that come with a union contract. So it takes commitment and teamwork to get to a majority of your coworkers signed up on union cards.
What is the Voluntary Organizing Committee or "VOC" ?
The Organizing Committee (OC) or Volunteer Organizing Committee (VOC) is the group of workers who visibly and actively help to organize and establish a union in each workplace. Workers from different areas and shifts help educate co-workers about the union, sign up co-workers on union authorization cards and organize and lead other actions when necessary. Who are the workers you think must be a part of the VOC in order to win at your plant?
How do I find out who is on the VOC in my workplace?
Send an email to standupuaworganizing@uaw.net and someone from your VOC will get back to you.
What is the 30 - 50 - 70 strategy?
“30-50-70″ is our plan not just to win a union, but to win a strong union, and a strong union contract. When 30% of us sign cards in our plant, our Volunteer Organizing Committee (VOC) will publicly announce that we are forming a union. When 50% have signed cards, we will hold a big rally with our co-workers, UAW President Shawn Fain, community leaders, and other allies showing that a majority of us are willing to fight for our union. When 70% of us have signed cards, and we have a VOC from every department, line and shift, we will demand the company recognize our union – or take it to a vote, and win.
How will we know the status of the campaign at our company?
We encourage every single one of our coworkers to get actively involved. If you want to learn more about the status of organizing in your workplace, reach out to your VOC. If you don’t know who is on your VOC, send an email to standupuaworganizing@uaw.net and someone will get back to you.
What if I‘m talking to my coworkers and I don’t have all the answers to their questions?
It’s great that you’re talking to your co-workers about forming a union! That’s the most important thing you can do to build your union. And it’s okay if you don’t know the answers to every question. If someone asks you a question you are unable to answer, say you will get back to them and then reach out to your VOC to discuss an accurate and effective answer.
My coworker said they were worried our boss would fire us or target us for publicly supporting the union. What do I say?
Federal law protects our right to organize a union. That doesn’t mean bosses don’t break the law, but it does mean you have some protection. In fact, your best protection is the fact that thousands of autoworkers are currently standing up to form unions with the UAW across the country, across over a dozen companies. While company retaliation would be illegal, our greatest protection is each other. By joining together and building public support for the union, we make it much harder for the boss to single any of us out individually. A union is all about strength in numbers.
Why is it important to get more than 50% or our coworkers to sign cards?
We don’t just want a union. We want a strong union, and a strong union contract. Overwhelming majority support will give us the power to not just establish our union, but also the power to win the kind of major improvements we deserve: better pay, better benefits and real rights on the job—just like UAW members just won at the Big Three.
Management has said if we sign a card, then we are giving up our rights to the UAW. Is that true?
Companies often try to convince workers that we are giving something up by signing a union card. The reality is that forming a union means having more rights and more power, not less—which is why most companies spend so much money and energy trying to convince us to not unionize. Signing a card means one thing: you support forming a union with the UAW to represent you in collective bargaining.
What is collective bargaining? How does that work?
Collective bargaining is all about strength in numbers. Instead of individuals going up against a powerful corporation, you and your coworkers come together – collectively – to negotiate a better deal with your employer. Think about what would happen if one of your coworkers asked for a raise. Then think about what would happen if all of your coworkers asked for a raise.
Under collective bargaining, we elect representatives to negotiate on equal footing with our employer and put the terms of our employment into a legally binding contract. Through collective bargaining, unionized workers have successfully negotiated improvements in wages, hours, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment—which is why companies pull out the stops to block employees from unionizing.
Without collective bargaining, management has the unilateral power to change our working conditions any time they want. A non-union auto company can currently determine unilaterally whether or not we receive predictable pay increases, the quality and cost of our benefits, or any other policies that affect our work in the plant every day. Without a contract, anything the company gives, the company can also take away. A collectively bargained union contract forces the company to commit to specific, enforceable terms about our wages, benefits, and rights on the job.
Supervisors are saying UAW dues are very expensive. How much are membership dues and when do we start paying?
In the UAW, we do not pay a dime in membership dues until we have gone through the bargaining process and voted democratically to approve our first contract. UAW dues are 2.5 hours of straight-time pay per month. For someone making $25 an hour, that’s $62.50 per month. Let’s put that into perspective.
Most Big Three autoworkers just got a raise from about $32 an hour to about $42 an hour over about four years. That’s about $1700 more a month, for the cost of $80-$100 a month in dues. Would you take that deal? Most workers would. And that’s just the wages, let alone the benefits, job protections, and rights on the job.
Dues are important because they provide the resources necessary to build and sustain a strong union and rights in the workplace. It takes resources to have a strong union, from the earliest stages of forming a union for the first time, to bargaining and campaigning for the first contract, to enforcing rights under an existing contract, and providing strike benefits if we decide democratically to go on strike like Big 3 workers did recently. Dues provide those resources.
How do we combat all the misinformation the employer is putting out there?
It’s no secret that management and corporations are willing to lie if it will save them money. It is common for employers to try to convince workers not to organize a union. Now that thousands of us are organizing across the United States, our employers are spreading misleading information in an attempt to discourage us. We know better.
The best way to combat company misinformation is by educating ourselves about what it means to have a union and engage in collective bargaining and talking to our co-workers. It’s our job to talk to our coworkers and not let the boss be the only voice in the room. Building a VOC that includes organizers from every part of the workplace on every shift will put us in the best position to overcome the employer’s divide-and-conquer schemes.
Is it okay to just leave flyers and pamphlets laying around anonymously so nobody can be targeted by management?
This might seem like a safe strategy, but the most effective way to build a strong union is to build a VOC that includes workers across the plant who are willing to be visible—that means having the courage to publicly talk to, share information with, and answer questions from our co-workers about why we are forming a union and, when necessary, organize and coordinate workplace actions. There’s no substitute for talking to your coworkers and having real, face-to-face conversations.
Will my supervisor see my card?
I get why you’d think we need to be secretive. But we won’t win in the shadows. And we won’t successfully win our fair share of the profits create if we’re afraid. The Stand-Up campaign is about showing each other and our company that we are tired of broken promises and living in fear of being targeted. To win our union and our contract, we are going to show at 30%, 50% and 70% that we are together and stronger than we’ve ever been.
The question facing us is: Are we going to live in fear and keep getting short-changed, or Stand Up together and win our union and UAW contract?
WHY WE’RE STANDING UP AT HYUNDAI: STORIES FROM THE “VOC”
Hyundai workers from across the plant are signing union cards. Many of us are also stepping up and joining the “VOC,” the Volunteer Organizing Committee. VOC members reach out to our coworkers and talk about why we’re forming the union. Hear their stories, help win our union, and JOIN THE VOC.
“Team Built, Team Strong is the Hyundai motto, but that’s not how it is. Hyundai can just drop a weekend on you whenever they want. I got injured on the job, and they said, yes, you’re on leave and we’re going to hold your spot, but we’re going to take your vacation days and your vacation days. Our voice isn’t really heard. Having the union, we will be heard. We will have a voice.”
AISHA WEST
General Assembly, Trim 3
“I’m getting close to retirement and the company has literally broken me down. I’ve had carpal tunnel surgery on one hand and rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders. We need compensation for that when we retire. Not just a cake and a car discount for a car we can’t afford to buy because we won’t have any income. We need a real retirement; we need to win our union.”
DRENA SMITH
Quality Control Improvement, Body
“I was a temp at Hyundai from 2014 to 2017. I made $11.03 an hour the entire time. They kept saying, just wait a little longer, you’ll make it to full time. I finally did, but the pay is still mediocre. With the union, we can bring our pay and benefits up to a higher standard. That’s how you motivate your workers. It’s not just good for us, it’s good for the product we produce.”
RONALD TERRY
General Assembly, Final 3 and 5
“My oldest son works at the plant, over on General Assembly (GA). I went through 14 years in GA and I know what it’ll do to your body over there. I don’t want the younger generation to go through what we did. Over the last ten years, most of my raises have been just 12 or 13 cents an hour. The price of their cars, they go up every year. But my pay don’t. If we don’t get the union here, our pay will never keep up.”
DEWAYNE NAYLOR
Body Shop Quality Control
“Here’s when I knew we needed the union. My youngest son had a basketball game and I scheduled a half day of vacation time. Someone was supposed to come to the line to relieve me, but no one came. Finally, I clocked out and I missed the first quarter of his game. They still wanted to write me up for job abandonment. I had to go in front of team relations and I explained what happened, that I was legit in having this vacation day. And my group leader stopped me and said this job is more important than your family. At that moment, I just froze. That was sickening. I knew things at Hyundai had gone too far.”
QUICHELLE LIGGINS
Quality Inspector, PDI
“A few years ago, if you would have told me I’d be calling for the union, I would have said you don’t know me very well. I’ve always been, don’t rock the boat. But after COVID hit, and seeing how the company treated all those folks, forcing people to jump through hoops and use up their time, I said this is not right, this is not right at all. I really saw the plant going downhill. I knew we had to do something to fix it. I knew we had to win the union.”
TIM CRIPPLE
Engine 3 Machining, Line 1
“When you’re injured, management pushes you back on the line too soon. I had surgery on my rotator cuff in September and I had to go back to work the last of December. I didn’t get the two weeks ramp up and now I’m having pains over again. I had a cortisone injection three weeks ago and I’m about to go back for another injection. If that doesn’t work, the doctor told me he’ll have to do the surgery over again. We need to make our jobs safer, we need the union.”
PEGGY HOWARD
General Assembly, F1 Final
“I started in December 2020 and my first year at Hyundai, you couldn’t have paid me to be in the union. But we’re to a point now where we are robots, we are absolutely robots. I got hurt on the job, and I had to have a disc replacement in my neck. Three weeks after I came back a tailgate fell on me. They did not stop the line. They didn’t care about my injuries. They let me walk from the line to medical. That’s when I knew we needed the union. There’s no fairness now, there’s favoritism. With the union, everybody will be equal.”
MATASHA JOHNSON
General Assembly, Trim 1
“Hyundai would be so much better with a union. I’m just back from carpal tunnel surgery and my hand is still hurting. In my area, we struggle to keep a full staff because so many people are out injured. Being in the union, having a real say for safer jobs, it would be a better way of life for all of us.”
KISSY COX
General Assembly, Trim 1
“Hyundai acts like they listen to our concerns, but they don’t take them into consideration,” said Landers Cook, who works Quality Control in Trim and started at the plant in 2012. “I used to work the line, and when I was there, I had a pinched nerve in my neck. They would just send me to medical and they put either ice or heat on it. They didn’t know what they were doing. It turned into two years before they finally sent me to a doctor. And then they sent me to the wrong doctor. That doctor drug his feet, I couldn’t go to a neck doctor until he referred me. I finally got there, ended up having to have my neck fused, C5 and C6. Then as soon as I come back, they had me putting engine mounts and transmission mounts on. It just beats you to death. The union protects you, it gives you a voice where we don’t have a voice right now.”
LANDERS COOK
Quality Control, Trim
“I’ve been at Hyundai for 19 years. There was a lot of pride and enthusiasm on the job when I first started. If you had an idea, you could take it to management. As a team member now, you don’t have a voice in what’s going on. We have no representation. If you have a problem, you can’t take it to team relations because they are not for us. They represent management. Management can make changes to the handbook to benefit them at their discretion, any time. That’s not right. That’s why we need the union.”
VERONICA WHITE
Engine 1 Machining
“I’ve been here 18 years and morale is falling. Every month, they keep popping off Saturdays we have to work. Even when you get time off, you’re too tired to spend it. If we do make it to retirement, all we’ll get is a 401(k) that’s gonna run out. And then you lose your insurance. It only gets worse for us if we do nothing. The only way it gets better is with the union.”
FREDERICK OWENS
Team Member, PDI
