United Auto Workers

Article on other languages:

del.icio.us del.icio.us
Digg Digg
Furl Furl
Reddit Reddit
Rojo Rojo
Add to OnlyWire
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (September 2007)
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (March 2008)
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America
United Auto Workers
Founded May, 1935
Members 464,910[1]
Country United States, Canada
Affiliation AFL-CIO, CLC
Key people Ron Gettelfinger, president
Office location Detroit, MI, United States
Website www.uaw.org

The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is a labor union which represents workers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Founded in order to represent workers in the automobile manufacturing industry, UAW members in the 21st century work in industries as diverse as health care, casino gaming and higher education.

Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, the union has approximately 800 local unions, which negotiated 3,100 contracts with some 2,000 employers.[2]

Contents

History

The UAW was founded in May 1935 in Detroit, Michigan, under the auspices of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) after years of agitation within the labor federation. The AFL had focused on organizing craft unions since its founding in 1881 by Samuel Gompers. But at its 1935 convention, a caucus of industrial unions led by John L. Lewis formed the Committee for Industrial Organization, the original CIO, within the AFL. Within one year, the AFL suspended the unions in the CIO, and these, including the UAW, formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

The UAW was one of the first major unions that was willing to organize African-American workers. The UAW rapidly found success in organizing with the sit-down strike — first in a General Motors plant in Atlanta, Georgia in 1936, and more famously in the Flint sit-down strike that began on December 29, 1936. That strike ended in February 1937 after Michigan's governor Frank Murphy played the role of mediator, negotiating recognition of the UAW by General Motors. The next month, auto workers at Chrysler won recognition of the UAW as their representative in a sit-down strike.

The UAW's next target was the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford had promised that "The UAW would organize Ford over my dead body." Ford selected Harry Bennett to keep the union out of the company, and the Ford Service Department was set up as an internal security, intimidation, and espionage unit within the company, and quickly gained a reputation of using violence against union organizers and sympathizers (see The Battle of the Overpass). It took until 1941 for Ford to agree to a collective bargaining agreement with the UAW. By the end of the year, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dramatically changed the nature of the UAW's organizing.

The UAW's Executive Board voted to make a "no strike" pledge to ensure that the war effort would not be hindered by strikes, and that pledge was later reaffirmed by the membership.

After the successful organization of the auto industry, the UAW moved towards unionization of other industries. For a time, the UAW even organized workers at bicycle fabrication and assembly plants in Cleveland and Chicago, including AMF, Murray, and later Schwinn Bicycle Co. The AMF and Murray plants later closed and were relocated to other states after increasing competition forced retooling, modernization, and a reduction in per-unit labor costs. In 1980, the Schwinn factory, hard hit by foreign competition and in need of complete modernization, also closed its doors.

At the UAW's constitutional convention in 1946 Walter Reuther won the election for president and served until his death in a small airplane accident in May 1970 — leading the union during one of the most prosperous periods for workers in U.S. history. In the 1960s, the UAW used its strategy of negotiating a contract with one major auto maker and applying it to others to secure a number of new benefits for auto workers, including fully paid hospitalization and sick leave benefits at General Motors and profit sharing in American Motors. The UAW also grew to include workers in other major industries such as the aerospace and agricultural-implement industries.

During the 1950s and 1960s, UAW members became one of the best paid groups of industrial workers in the country — placing them solidly in the middle class of American society. By the end of this period, changes in the global economy, competition from European and Japanese automobile makers, and management decisions at the U.S. automakers had already started to significantly reduce the profits of the major auto makers and set the stage for the drastic changes in the 1970s.

The situation for the automotive industry and UAW members worsened dramatically with the 1973 oil embargo. Rising fuel prices caused the U.S. auto makers to lose market share to foreign manufacturers who placed more emphasis on fuel efficiency. This started years of layoffs and wage reductions, and the UAW found itself in the position of giving up many of the benefits it had won for workers over the decades. By the early 1980s, the state of Michigan had been devastated economically by the losses in jobs and income within the state's largest industry. This peaked with the near-bankruptcy of Chrysler in 1979. As a result of plant closings, cities such as Flint, Lansing, and to a lesser extent Detroit began to lose population and businesses. In 1985 the union's Canadian division disaffiliated from the UAW over a dispute regarding negotiation tactics and formed the Canadian Auto Workers as an independent union. Specifically the Canadian division claimed they were being used to pressure the companies for extra benefits which went mostly to the American members.

The UAW has seen a dramatic decline in membership since the 1970s. Membership topped 1.5 million in 1979.[1] But because of restructuring and decline of the American domestic auto industry due in part by the increased compensation and benefits advocated by the UAW, membership fell to approximately 540,000 at the end of 2006[3] and to just under 465,000 members by the end of 2007. The last time the UAW had fewer than 500,000 members was in 1941.[1] In 2008 the UAW has publicly backed infamous former Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick before, during and after his text message/police firing scandal. They've also bolstered support for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama by distributing newsletters and sponsoring rallies.

Academic Union

In the 1990s, the UAW began to focus on new areas of organizing both geographically — in places like Puerto Rico — and in terms of occupations, with new initiatives among university staff, freelance writers (through the subsidiary National Writers Union) and employees of non-profit organizations. And, since the 1980s the UAW is also taking on the organization of academic student employees (aka "ASEs") — typically Teaching Assistants, Research Assistants, Graders, Tutors — under the slogan "Uniting Academic Workers". As of 2004, the UAW represents more ASEs than any other Union in the United States. Universities with UAW ASE representation include the University of California, California State University, University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, and New York University.

Jobs bank program

According to an October 17, 2005 article in The Detroit News, the jobs bank program pays more than 12,000 laid-off UAW members their full salary and benefits to not work. The article quoted Ken Pool, one of the UAW members enrolled in the program, and who was being paid $31 an hour plus full benefits, as saying, "We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper." [4] The UAW is rumoured to be giving up the program as a concession to help US automakers get a bailout package from Congress in December 2008.[5] These statements are not entirely true. Workers are either required to report for non-production work, or they may choose to perform 40-weekly hours of non-profit charity work. Most choose the latter, despite what the Detroit newspapers (themselves famous for anti-union activity) have reported. They are required to submit time-statements from their chosen charitable organization, and HR staffers make spot-checks. If the plant closes entirely, volunteer work is the only option. Workers only enter the jobs bank program after they exhaust a 48-week layoff.

List of Locals

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
  • Local 10, Doraville, GA
  • Local 12, Toledo, OH
  • Local 14, Toledo, OH
  • Local 21, Traverse City, MI (Cone Drive Textron)
  • Local 22, Detroit, MI (Cadillac local)
  • Local 23, Indianapolis, IN
  • Local 31, Fairfax, KS
  • Local 36, Wixom, MI
  • Local 72, Kenosha, WI
  • Local 95, Janesville WI
  • Local 136, St. Louis MO
  • Local 140, Warren, MI (Warren Truck Assembly Plant)
  • Local 160, Warren, MI
  • Local 163, Romulus, MI
  • Local 211, Defiance, OH
  • Local 212, Detroit, MI (Dodge Viper Plant)
  • Local 239, Baltimore, MD
  • Local 226, Indianapolis, IN
  • Local 276, Arlington, TX
  • Local 362, Bay City, MI
  • Local 372, Trenton, MI (Trenton Engine)
  • Local 400, Utica MI
  • Local 435, Wilmington, DE
  • Local 440, Bedford, IN
  • Local 465, Massena, NY
  • Local 544, Pittsburgh, PA
  • Local 549, Mansfield, OH
  • Local 551, Chicago, Il
  • Local 581, Flint, MI (Defunct Fisher Body 1 local)
  • Local 594, Pontiac, MI
  • Local 598, Flint, MI (Result of the 1937 Great Sit Down Strike, Flint Truck Assembly Local.)
  • Local 599, Flint, MI (Buick City/Powertrain North local)
  • Local 602, Lansing MI
  • Local 651, Flint, MI (AC Sparkplug/Delphi Flint East local)
  • Local 652, Lansing MI
  • Local 653, Pontiac, MI
  • Local 659, Flint, MI (Chevrolet Manufacturing/Delphi West, Flint Powertrain South, Flint Metal Center, Flint SPO)
  • Local 668, Saginaw, MI
  • Local 699, Saginaw, MI (Saginaw Steering)
  • Local 710, Kansas City, MO
  • Local 730, Grand Rapids, MI
  • Local 735, Ypsilanti, MI
  • Local 751, Decatur, IL
  • Local 774, Tonawanda, NY
  • Local 862, Louisville, KY
  • Local 865, East Moline, Il
  • Local 892, Saline MI
  • Local 909, Warren, MI
  • Local 933, Indianapolis, IN
  • Local 974, Peoria IL
  • Local 977, Marion, IN
  • Local 1005, Parma, OH
  • Local 1069, Ridley Park, PA
  • Local 1112, Lordstown, OH
  • Local 1292, Grand Blanc, MI
  • Local 1714, Lordstown, OH
  • Local 1752, Elmira NY
  • Local 1853, Spring Hill, TN
  • Local 1979, Detroit, MI (Professional and Administrative at Wayne State University)
  • Local 2123, Fredericksburg, VA
  • Local 2164, Bowling Green, KY
  • Local 2166, Shreveport, LA
  • Local 2209, Fort Wayne, IN
  • Local 2244, Fremont CA
  • Local 2250, Wentzville, MO
  • Local 2335, Hammond, IN
  • Local 2865, Berkeley, CA (ASEs at all University of California campuses)
  • Local 2901, Warren, OH
  • Local 2926, Shelbyville, KY (Ford SuperDuty Truck Seating/Johnson Controls)
  • Local 3000, Woodhaven, MI
  • Local 3055, Columbia City, IN
  • Local 3520, Cleveland, NC
  • Local 4112, Lordstown, OH
  • Local 4911, Lansing, MI
  • Local 5285, Mount Holly NC
  • Local 5286, High Point NC
  • Local 5960, Orion, MI
  • Local 6000, Lansing, MI

Trivia

The UAW founded WDET 101.9fm in Detroit, MI in 1948. The station was later sold to Wayne State University for $1 in 1952.


See also

Organized Labour portal

Notes

  1. ^ a b c "Drop in U.A.W. Rolls Reflects Automakers’ Problems," Associated Press, March 28, 2008.
  2. ^ Who We Are from UAW website. Retrieved 21 November 2008.
  3. ^ Thomas, "UAW Membership, Dues Declined Last Year," Associated Press, April 12, 2007.
  4. ^ Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work, The Detroit News, October 17, 2005
  5. ^ UAW may give up jobs bank to revive auto loans

References

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Auto_Workers"

Article keywords: united auto worker union,

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.