TOYOTA WORKERS STAND UP!
WE’RE TOYOTA. WE’RE UAW.
AND WE’RE READY TO STAND UP.
We are the Toyota workers of Troy, Missouri. We make the cylinder heads for every Toyota engine in North America. And now we’re making history: we’re the first Toyota workers to launch our public campaign to join the UAW. We work for the biggest, most profitable car company in the world, but our pay doesn’t come close to what UAW members earn at the Big Three. Together, we’re standing up to win the fair pay, safe jobs and respect that every autoworker deserves.
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 WORKING TO BUILD OUR UNION AT TOYOTA
Toyota workers in Troy and across the country have signed our union cards. It’s how we form our union so we win can our fair share at Toyota. If you haven’t signed a card yet Stand Up and JOIN THE UAW.
“Seeing the new contracts with the Big Three, that’s when I realized we needed a union. It was incredible that UAW members could bargain for those benefits and that pay. I don’t see why we should be paid differently. Toyota makes more money than all the Big Three. So there’s no reason why we should be so far behind. We make cylinder heads for every Toyota in North America. The company can’t run without us. We should get paid like it. We can by organizing our union.”
CHARLES LASHLEY
Team Member, Support
“The plant is not safe. They had me crawl under a deck to clean out the sand and silica dust and chemicals that come out of the machines. It was a confined space, I should’ve been in a respirator and a hazmat suit. All they gave me was a KN-95 mask. I came home and that dust was in my hair, on my clothes, in my underwear. How can the richest car company in the world not follow basic safety practices? We’re organizing to fix what’s wrong and win the protection we need.”
JAYE HOCHULI
Team Leader
“When I was hired two and a half years ago, I came in with 24 people. I’m the last one left. The overtime we worked was too much. Overtime now isn’t the problem it was, but there’s still no sick time. We still have to use PTO during shutdowns. I came from Ford, I came from UAW. The union was a better fit for your life. In our union, we have more control. We have a better life.”
JESSICA CLAY
Team Member, Die Changes
“The company has a slogan they like to use: One Toyota. We’ve got the Toyota sign out front, just like they do in Kentucky and Indiana. But our pay is nowhere near what theirs is. We know what the company makes. We know they can afford to pay us. By organizing our union, we can win our fair share.”
JARRED WEHDE
Production Team Member
“I feel like Toyota has left us behind. We all play a vital role in how Toyota produces its cars. And I just I don’t see any logical reason for us to be making so much less than everybody else. The contract with the Big Three definitely opened my eyes. Now’s the time to stand up. This is our best shot to organize our union and win our fair share.”
JACOB CONOVER
Team Leader, Phase 19 & 20
“We have systems in the company that are just not fair. I tore my rotator cuff and I continued working right up until the surgery. I had surgery on a Friday and reported back to work the very next Monday. I was in a full sling, it was constant pain, but you can’t take pain medication at work because it makes you sleepy. Right after surgery at Toyota, we always go right back to work. Unless it’s something where you can’t walk, you’re returning to work. We need our union so we have time to heal properly, so our health and our safety really come first.”
DAWN ELLIS
Team Member
“Me, personally, I’ve never been in a union. I want to know what that’s like to come together in solidarity and have a voice to the point where we can make a difference. I want to hold management accountable and not see them just basically blow smoke. I want to actually change the workplace conditions for my fellow coworkers. When we’re together in the UAW, we’ll have the power to do it.”
NICK RAMSOUR
Production Team Member
“They specify for safety to use a hoist for parts we move. But there’s a lot of group leaders and higher ups that push quantity over quality and safety. They say we need to move faster, we need to keep going. So instead of using a hoist, we’re having to move them by hand. I personally have not been injured, but I have seen a lot of my friends injured. From strained shoulders to hurt wrists and elbows, you name it. Our friends, our coworkers, they need help. With the union, we can back each other up, we can stop these injuries.”
ULYSSES HERRERA
Production Team Member
“Safety should be at a higher level than it is. People are leaving because there are too many injuries. This is a company that’s number one in the world. They have the money to do better, but this is corporate greed. They’re not going to do better unless we make them. And the only way to make them is with our union.”
TAMMIE SMITH
Production Associate
“I drive a forklift that carries molten aluminum. If that spills on someone, it can be catastrophic. There needs to be separation between us and people walking on the floor. There’s not. It’s a miracle I haven’t splashed molten metal on someone. It feels like it’s only a matter of time if we don’t make a change. We’re building our union to make that change and keep people safe.”
COREY HOCHULI
Team Member, Support
“When we switched over from Bodine to Toyota, they said we’d align with Toyota benefits and standards. We could all come together and be one instead of separated. But that didn’t happen. Things haven’t gotten better. If anything, it’s worse. Organizing our union is how we’ll win the benefits and standards we were promised.”
JORDAN BUIS
Team Leader
“I’ve been there six years and I’ve never seen an employee handbook. If your line needs relief, if there’s a question about medical leave or bereavement leave, they just make the rules on the fly Together in our union, we can win a fair contract and the fair treatment we’ve earned.”
SHELBY COLBERT
Team Member
UAW MERCEDES ALABAMA VOLUNTEER ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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