tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/united-auto-workers-19925/articlesUnited Auto Workers – The Conversation2024-03-22T12:33:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2259862024-03-22T12:33:52Z2024-03-22T12:33:52ZEPA’s new auto emissions standard will speed the transition to cleaner cars, while also addressing consumer and industry concerns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583580/original/file-20240321-17-nik9ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C12%2C8588%2C5729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charging bays at the Electrify America indoor electric vehicle charging station in San Francisco.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ElectricVehiclesFancyChargers/c523cbda2a68423595229884d4da249b/photo">AP Photo/Eric Risberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-multi-pollutant-emissions-standards-model">strict new emissions limits</a> on March 20, 2024, for cars built from 2027 through 2032. The final rule for Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards caps a process that started almost a year earlier, when the Biden administration first proposed groundbreaking regulations that would essentially require automakers to make a <a href="https://theconversation.com/boosting-ev-market-share-to-67-of-us-car-sales-is-a-huge-leap-but-automakers-can-meet-epas-tough-new-standards-203663">substantial pivot toward electrification</a>.</p>
<p>The original proposal met significant pushback from carmakers and unions, who argued that the industry <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/18/epa-electric-vehicles-car-rules/">needed more time to switch</a> from gas-powered cars to EVs. As a result, while the final target that this rule sets is very similar to the one that was initially proposed, the timetable in the final rule – especially in the earlier years – is relatively relaxed. </p>
<p>That means more carbon emissions in the short run. Politics is inevitably an important consideration in regulating major industries.</p>
<p>The new rule is projected to cut carbon dioxide emissions from passenger cars <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/420f24016.pdf">by nearly 50% in model year 2032</a> relative to existing standards. This requires a broad shift toward EVs, but automakers have many options for complying. </p>
<p>For example, they could emphasize producing battery-electric vehicles or more mixed fleets that include large shares of <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a45498641/types-of-hybrid-cars-pros-and-cons-explained/">hybrids and plug-in hybrids</a>, plus cleaner gas-powered cars. EPA projects that under the rule, in model years 2030-32, battery-electric vehicles may account for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/420f24016.pdf">up to 56% of new cars</a>, up from <a href="https://apnews.com/article/epa-electric-vehicles-emissions-limits-climate-biden-e6d581324af51294048df24269b5d20a">7.6% in 2023</a>. </p>
<p>As a researcher who studies <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=h-2TvzUAAAAJ&hl=en">the electric vehicle industry and adoption of EVs</a>, I believe the new rule will nevertheless push electrification nationwide. There’s a lot of latent demand for this technology throughout the country, and this regulation will help bring that supply to broader populations. It also is likely to spur more installation of chargers and other supporting infrastructure.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The new rule will help slow climate change and save billions of dollars in health care costs.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Impacts on consumers</h2>
<p>Traditionally, new fuel efficiency and emissions standards directly affect vehicle costs and often lead to higher prices at the dealership. However, the EPA projects that in the long term, driving electric vehicles, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/electric-vehicle-charging-price-vs-gasoline/">cost less to fuel and maintain than gas-powered cars</a>, will save owners <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/420f24016.pdf">US$6,000 on average</a> over the life of a new car. </p>
<p>Moreover, EVs bring broader benefits, such as improved air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, which benefit society as a whole. </p>
<p>Fossil fuel combustion generates many harmful pollutants, including fine particulates, which have been linked to <a href="https://theconversation.com/heart-attacks-cancer-dementia-premature-deaths-4-essential-reads-on-the-health-effects-driving-epas-new-fine-particle-air-pollution-standard-223057">a range of negative health effects</a>. The EPA estimates that air pollution reductions triggered by the new rule will generate <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/420f24016.pdf">US$13 billion in annual health benefits</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/C4QmEsvutYQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\u0026igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Building confidence in batteries</h2>
<p>One important feature of the new rule is that for the first time, the EPA has set forth explicit requirements for monitoring and ensuring the durability of EV batteries. This step recognizes that battery longevity is a pivotal factor in EVs’ value proposition and environmental impact. </p>
<p>The regulations delineate two primary benchmarks: The battery must retain at least 80% of its original capacity at five years or 62,000 miles and at least 70% after eight years or 100,000 miles. These requirements will help to standardize the <a href="https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last">wide variability in battery degradation</a> between different vehicle models. </p>
<p>Importantly, the health of batteries must be tracked via a monitor in the car that measures what is known as the vehicle’s state of certified energy – the amount of battery capacity left at full charge after accounting for degradation – and displays it to the driver. EV owners will have constant information about the health of their battery, expressed as a percentage of what the battery had when it was brand new. This feature will be especially useful for people buying used EVs, since it will help them assess how much battery power the car still has at the time of purchase.</p>
<p>These and other battery durability and warranty requirements are likely to play a pivotal role in the EV market, influencing both manufacturers’ engineering choices and consumers’ purchasing decisions. By setting clear standards, the EPA is driving the industry toward more robust and reliable battery technologies, which could enhance the overall attractiveness of EVs and accelerate their market penetration.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Biden speaks to reporters from the wheel of a new pickup truck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583581/original/file-20240321-18-ge6th9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden, a self-described ‘car guy,’ drives a Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck on May 18, 2021, in Dearborn, Mich.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ElectricVehiclesFederalFleet/8d61a7311ee84326b163a1cbd0ac7219/photo">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span>
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<h2>When is a plug-in running on electricity?</h2>
<p>Another item in the new regulations shows how the EPA has attempted to address manufacturers’ concerns. Since plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs, can run on either electricity or gasoline, regulators need some basis for determining how often they rely on one versus the other. The number that experts use in these situations, called the utility factor, is a calculation of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj14110301">what fraction of the time a PHEV drives on electricity</a>.</p>
<p>Many researchers had argued that the EPA had <a href="https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-phev-us-dec22.pdf">overestimated the utility factor</a> and warned that inflating the extent to which PHEVs operated on electric power could lead to regulations that put too much priority on these vehicles. Under the newly finalized regulations, the agency has adjusted the calculation to reflect a better understanding of how these vehicles operate in the real world. </p>
<p>For example, the adjustment in the utility factor for a model like the Prius Prime, with a 48-mile electric range, reduces the assumption of electric travel from the previous 65%-70% to about 55%. Similarly, for the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, with a 21-mile range, the utility factor is adjusted from around 40% to 30%.</p>
<p>These changes provide a more accurate reflection of PHEVs’ contribution to reducing emissions, which helps ensure that the regulatory framework aligns better with actual usage patterns. And by modifying the utility factor, the EPA may nudge manufacturers toward prioritizing more efficient PHEVs or shifting their focus toward fully electric vehicles. </p>
<h2>A clear signal to carmakers</h2>
<p>Changing auto efficiency standards has traditionally meant making incremental improvements in vehicle technologies, such as increases in engine efficiency. This new rule is much more aggressive and has a clear goal of driving a major shift toward EVs and other clean car types. </p>
<p>These standards can help companies set goals for the future by providing clear targets. Failing to meet EPA rules can <a href="https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/clean-air-act-vehicle-and-engine-enforcement-case-resolutions">incur tough penalties</a>. </p>
<p>In my view, these standards are an important step in the right direction to achieve U.S. climate goals, and they will serve as a stick that complements the monetary carrots funded by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-new-incentives-for-clean-energy-arent-enough-the-inflation-reduction-act-was-just-the-first-step-now-the-hard-work-begins-188693">Inflation Reduction Act</a>, which authorized tax credits and subsidies for EVs and charging stations. The new rule may not be a perfect policy from a pure climate perspective, but given automakers’ concerns and the political sensitivity of this issue, I believe it hits the target.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Jenn receives or has received funding from the Department of Energy, the Sloan Foundation, and the Transportation Research Board. He was a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2021 Sixth Assessment Report.</span></em></p>The new rule isn’t a mandate for electric vehicles, but it will sharply increase their market share over the coming decade.Alan Jenn, Associate Professional Researcher in Transportation, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231622024-03-08T13:37:46Z2024-03-08T13:37:46ZUAW’s Southern strategy: Union revs up drive to get workers employed by foreign automakers to join its ranks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580189/original/file-20240306-16-zhfgjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=135%2C63%2C5068%2C2506&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A UAW supporter in 2017 outside a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., ahead of a vote the union lost.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Nissan-Union/90212afb1edb40979e133f3d7931592a/photo?Query=mississippi%20uaw&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=18">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Persuading Southern autoworkers to join a union remains one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the United Auto Workers union to organize this workforce.</p>
<p>To be sure, the UAW does have members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-strike-united-auto-workers-uaw-f16005a7b20a6f1772947957854d1017">Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi</a>.</p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-uaw-idUSKBN0TN2DE20151205/">UAW has tried and largely failed</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/economy/volkswagen-chattanooga-uaw-union.html">organize workers</a> at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan in Southern states, where about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/uaw-jobs-south-auto/index.html">30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located</a>.</p>
<p>But after the UAW pulled off its <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">most successful strike in a generation</a> against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023, the union is trying again to win over Southern autoworkers.</p>
<p>The UAW has <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-announces-40-million-commitment-to-organizing-auto-and-battery-workers-over-next-two-years/">pledged to spend US$40 million through 2026</a> to expand its ranks to include more auto and electric battery workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/business/economy/uaw-auto-workers-union.html">including many employed in the South</a>, where the industry is <a href="https://uaw.org/we-are-the-majority-workers-at-mercedes-benzs-largest-us-plant-announce-majority-support-for-movement-to-join-uaw/">quickly gaining ground</a>.</p>
<p>Based on my five decades of experience as a <a href="https://scua.uoregon.edu/agents/people/33456">union organizer and labor historian</a>, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face stiff resistance from Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and the other big foreign automakers that operate in the South. The <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-chattanooga-union-drive/">pushback is also coming from Southern politicians</a>, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The back of a worker wearing a UAW t-shirt indicating employment in Brandon, Mississippi." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign of things to come?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrikeMississippi/f5cb369d2cd245a99b3081ff2af50396/photo?Query=uaw%20alabama&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’</h2>
<p>After the region’s formerly robust <a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813037950.003.0010">textile industry imploded</a> in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers. </p>
<p>The strategy of those leaders reflects what the <a href="https://www.bcatoday.org/the-united-auto-workers-labor-union-must-not-do-to-alabama/">Business Council of Alabama</a> has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”</p>
<p>The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/14/automakers-investing-in-the-south-as-evs-change-the-auto-industry.html">lured the likes of Nissan, BMW</a>, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.</p>
<p>Although many of those companies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-ig-metall-agree-wage-deal-2021-04-13/">negotiate constructively</a> with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.</p>
<p>As journalist <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-may-15-la-oe-meyerson-europeans-20110515-story.html">Harold Meyerson has noted</a>, these foreign automakers embraced the opportunity to “slum” in America and “do things they would never think of doing at home.”</p>
<p>The absence of union representation is a major reason why.</p>
<p>Less than 5% of workers in six Southern states are union members, and only Alabama and Mississippi approach union membership levels above 7%, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. </p>
<p>That’s below the national average, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">slid to 10% in 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Blaming unions for bad job prospects</h2>
<p>One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59212/">portraying them as outdated institutions</a> whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.</p>
<p>Automotive leaders in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that <a href="https://www.automotivedive.com/news/is-unionizing-foreign-automakers-next-uaw-strike/698260/">provides management with flexibility</a>, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives. </p>
<p>Southern automakers also draw on another powerful resource in resisting the UAW: public intervention by top elected officials.</p>
<p>In 2014, when the UAW attempted to organize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Bob Corker, Tennessee’s junior U.S. senator and a former mayor of Chattanooga, weighed in as voting commenced.</p>
<p>Corker claimed he had received a pledge from Volkswagen’s management to expand production in Chattanooga <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/116653/bob-corkers-uaw-intervention-chattanooga-vw-vote-speaks-volume">if workers voted against the union</a>. </p>
<p>Three years later, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant similarly urged Nissan workers to reject the UAW. </p>
<p>“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” <a href="https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">Bryant said in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>A majority of the autoworkers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/business/nissan-united-auto-workers-union.html">heeded their conservative leaders’ advice</a> in both cases and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/02/14/united-auto-workers-lose-historic-election-at-chattanooga-volkswagen-plant/">voted against joining the UAW</a>.</p>
<h2>Making dire warnings</h2>
<p>With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.</p>
<p>“The Alabama model for economic success is under attack,” <a href="https://www.madeinalabama.com/2024/01/gov-ivey-unions-want-to-target-one-of-alabamas-crown-jewel-industries-but-im-standing-up-for-alabamians-and-protecting-our-jobs/">warned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey</a>. </p>
<p>She then asked workers: “Do you want continued opportunity and success the Alabama way? Or do you want out-of-state special interests telling Alabama how to do business?”</p>
<p>Unions “have crippled and distorted the progress and prosperity of industries and cities in other states,” <a href="https://governor.sc.gov/news/2024-01/2024-state-state-address-governor-henry-mcmaster">South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster</a> declared in his Jan. 24, 2024, State of the State address. He then issued an ominous call: “We will fight” the UAW’s labor organizers “all the way to the gates of hell. And we will win.” </p>
<p>The UAW counters that union membership means workers will get predictable raises, <a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-14">better benefits and improved workplace policies</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing context</h2>
<p>Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1211602392/uaw-auto-strike-deals-ratified-big-three-shawn-fain">UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits</a> resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility. </p>
<p>Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW – including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants – responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/cars/uaw-labor-toyota-honda-hyundai/index.html">UAW bump</a>.”</p>
<p>The UAW will presumably cite these pay hikes in its outreach to <a href="https://theconversation.com/next-on-the-united-auto-workers-to-do-list-adding-more-members-who-currently-work-at-nonunion-factories-to-its-ranks-217064">workers at Tesla</a> and other nonunion companies involved in electric vehicle and battery production in which the industry is investing heavily. </p>
<p>“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,” <a href="https://uaw.org/join/">the UAW’s recruiting website</a> warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”</p>
<p>The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”</p>
<p>Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMPROVING-WORK-LIFE-BALANCE-AT-VOLKSWAGEN.pdf">expressing concerns over scheduling</a>, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.</p>
<p>It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXMNbGS2Hy0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Southern autoworkers applaud the union-organizing drive underway at a VW factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revving up</h2>
<p>The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up.</p>
<p>In accordance with its “<a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-6">30-50-70</a>” strategy, the union is announcing the share of workers who have signed union cards in stages. Once it hits 30% at a factory, the UAW will announce publicly that an organizing campaign is underway. At the 50% mark, it will hold a public rally for workers that includes their neighbors and families, as well as <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-motortrend-person-of-year-shawn-fain-uaw-president/">UAW President Shawn Fain</a>.</p>
<p>Once it gains support from 70% of a plant’s workers, the UAW says it will seek voluntary recognition by management.</p>
<p>A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to recognize the union’s request, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.</p>
<p>To win, unions need a majority of those voting. Under the new rule, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation">required to bargain with the union</a>.</p>
<p>So far, the UAW has announced that it has obtained the support of more than half the workers at factories belonging to two of the 13 nonunion automakers it’s targeting: a <a href="https://uaw.org/were-taking-the-lead-over-half-of-volkswagen-workers-in-chattanooga-tennessee-sign-cards-to-join-the-uaw-in-less-than-60-days/">Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga</a>, Tennessee, and a
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/uaw-union-mercedes-benz-alabama">Mercedes-Benz factory near Tuscaloosa</a>, Alabama. It has also obtained 30% support at a <a href="https://thehill.com/business/4440930-hyundai-workers-alabama-uaw/">Hyundai plant in Alabama</a> and a <a href="https://labornotes.org/2024/03/toyota-workers-critical-engine-plant-launch-uaw-union-drive">Toyota engine factory in Missouri</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/unions-south-labor-organizing-ussw-seiu-00114085">D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here</a>, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was briefly a UAW local union member in the 1970s.</span></em></p>Despite intermittent efforts over the past three decades, the UAW union has been unable to organize employees of foreign-based automakers in states such as Alabama and Tennessee.Bob Bussel, Professor Emeritus of History and Labor Education, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233072024-03-01T13:36:06Z2024-03-01T13:36:06ZRemembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit park honors labor and environmental history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579009/original/file-20240229-25-snzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Dearborn policeman knocked unconscious was the first casualty of the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/35955/rec/1">Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University/Detroit News Burckhardt.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The intersection of Fort Street and Oakwood Boulevard in southwest Detroit today functions mostly as a thoroughfare for trucks and commuters. </p>
<p>However, as you sit idling at the stoplight waiting to cross the bridge over the Rouge River, you might glance to the side and see something unexpected in this heavily industrialized area: A sculpture of weathered steel reaches toward the sky alongside a spray of flowers and waves of grasses and people fishing. </p>
<p>This inconspicuous corner, now the home of the <a href="https://www.motorcities.org/fortstreet">Fort Street Bridge Park</a>, has several stories to tell: of a river, a region, a historic conflict and an ongoing struggle. </p>
<p>If you pull over, you’ll enter a place that attempts to pull together threads of history, environment and sustainable redevelopment.</p>
<p>Signs explain why this sculpture and park are here: to honor the memory of <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hunger-march-ford/">protesters who met on this very spot on March 7, 1932</a>, before marching up Miller Road to the massive Ford Rouge River Complex located in the adjacent city of Dearborn. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=K9xPsDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociology professor</a>, I have a strong interest in how the history of labor and industrial pollution have influenced Detroit. </p>
<p>I’m also interested in the potential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0765-7">environmental restoration</a> or “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">green reparations</a>” to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.05.002">offer a new way forward</a>.</p>
<p>To understand this potential future, we must first recognize and honor the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An iron sculpture commemorates industry and sits as the centerpiece of the Ford Street Bridge Park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577974/original/file-20240226-24-rb9wdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fort Street Bridge Park is located along the banks of the Rouge River in southwest Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Draus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>14 demands</h2>
<p>In their book “<a href="https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story#:%7E:text=Extensively%20researched%2C%20yet%20highly%20readable,conflict%20from%20the%20workers'%20perspective.">Labor’s Untold Story</a>,” published in 1955, journalist Richard Boyer and historian Herbert Morais quote a contemporary account of the Hunger March: </p>
<p><em>It was early, it was cold when the first of the unemployed Ford workers (many of whom had been laid off the day before) arrived at Baby Creek Bridge. They were a small gray group and they stood slapping their sides, warding off the cold, and wondering if they alone would come.</em></p>
<p>Others soon joined them: Black and white, men and women, immigrants and American-born. They united to deliver a list of 14 demands to the auto tycoon <a href="https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/henry-ford-biography.html">Henry Ford</a>, whose US$5 daily wage for his workers was once considered revolutionary. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Police with bats follow Hunger March marchers on March 7, 1932." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579052/original/file-20240229-30-qh3912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunger March protesters demanded better pay and working conditions at the Ford Rouge plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wayne.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/vmc/id/37798/rec/1">Detroit News Staff via Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the marchers’ demands: jobs for laid-off workers, a seven-hour workday without a pay reduction, two 15-minute rest periods a day, an end to discrimination against Black workers and the right to organize. </p>
<p>This crowd of several thousand marched up the road on one of the coldest days of winter. They were greeted at the Dearborn border with clouds of tear gas, jets of cold water and a shower of bullets. </p>
<p>It was then that the Ford Hunger March became the Ford Massacre. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HFEskpjPbfE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Detroit Workers News Special 1932: Ford Massacre via Workers Film & Photo League International.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The seeds of a labor movement</h2>
<p>Beth Tompkins Bates, in her book “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469613857/the-making-of-black-detroit-in-the-age-of-henry-ford/">The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford</a>,” wrote that “The response of the Ford Motor Company on that day shot holes in the myth that Ford cared about his workers, that he was different from other businessmen.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of a young man with wavy hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578741/original/file-20240228-32-57ksmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Joe Bussell, killed by Ford Servicemen during the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit. Bussell’s relatives contributed to the Fort Street Bridge Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7269">Walter P. Reuther Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of the day, four marchers lay dead, while many others were injured and hospitalized. A fifth would die months later of his wounds. </p>
<p>More than 30,000 people showed up for the dead marchers’ funerals. The violent reactions of Ford security and Dearborn police during the march were widely condemned. </p>
<p>In an effort to address the stain on its public image, the Ford family first commissioned then expanded a major work by <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/detroit-industry-murals-detroit-institute-of-arts.htm">Mexican muralist Diego Rivera</a> that was to become the centerpiece of the Detroit Institute of Arts, known as the Detroit Industry Mural. Rivera, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X0800678X">a known communist</a>, depicted both ruthless efficiency and the racialized inequality of the industrial process. </p>
<p>Ford’s battle against unions was ultimately a failure. Five years after the Hunger March, the so-called “<a href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/ex/exhibits/battle.html">Battle of the Overpass</a>” led to the organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers. </p>
<p>The Ford Hunger March, long forgotten by many, is now <a href="https://www.workers.org/2022/03/62190/">acknowledged as an important catalyst</a> in the growth of the union movement. </p>
<h2>Struggle for sustainability and justice</h2>
<p>The fight for sustainability and environmental justice is another major theme of the park, which chronicles the history of the Rouge River, including the day in 1969 when the <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2019/10/rouge-river-fire-anniversary-great-lakes-moment/">oily water infamously caught fire</a>. </p>
<p>The hellish image of burning rivers helped motivate the signing of the <a href="https://www.boem.gov/air-quality-act-1967-or-clean-air-act-caa">Clean Air</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act">Clean Water acts</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/history">the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency</a>. </p>
<p>The air and water in and around Detroit are <a href="https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/05/once-beset-industrial-pollution-rouge-river-slow-path-recovery/">much cleaner today</a> than they were 1969. But this doesn’t change the fact that the area where the park sits bears a disproportionate burden of the pollution generated by the region’s industrial production, which includes cement plants, gypsum and aggregates processors, salt mining and asphalt storage, as well as a steel mill and petroleum refinery.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.marathonpetroleum.com/content/documents/Citizenship/2018/Sustainability_Report_10_21.pdf">donor to the park</a> is Marathon Petroleum Corporation whose Detroit Refinery occupies the adjoining neighborhood. Though Marathon has invested in the development of green spaces on its own property, the refinery has also expanded in recent years, <a href="https://wdi-publishing.com/product/marathon-petroleum-and-southwest-detroit-the-intersection-of-community-and-environment/">further degrading the local environment</a>.</p>
<p>Research shows that workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101502">benefit from unionization</a> in myriad ways, not only directly but indirectly. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/2023s-historic-hollywood-and-uaw-strikes-arent-labors-whole-story-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remained-relatively-low-219903">recent labor victories</a> by the UAW, Hollywood writers and other organizers stand in stark contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">long-term erosion of union membership</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit serves to remind us of the complexities of history and how apparent progress in one area may be followed by a setback somewhere else. It also represents how the spirit of community, unbroken, keeps pushing for something better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Draus is affiliated with Friends of the Rouge and Downriver Delta CDC, two nonprofit organizations involved with the Fort Street Bridge Park. He is also the facilitator of the Fort-Rouge Gateway (FRoG) Partnership, a coalition of representatives from nonprofit, community-based, academic and industry that is focused on the sustainable redevelopment of the industrial Rouge region. </span></em></p>On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions, sparking America’s labor movement. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.Paul Draus, Professor of Sociology; Director, Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180282024-02-06T13:30:14Z2024-02-06T13:30:14ZDriving the best possible bargain now isn’t the best long-term strategy, according to game theory<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572022/original/file-20240129-15-8tbwf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C10%2C6669%2C4456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is such a thing as a win-win deal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/employee-people-at-modern-office-royalty-free-image/1302423098">nortonrsx/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conventional wisdom says that you should never leave money on the table when negotiating. But research in my field suggests this could be exactly the wrong approach. </p>
<p>There’s <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/09/a-new-approach-to-contracts">mounting evidence</a> that a short-term win at the bargaining table can mean a loss in terms of overall trust and cooperation. That can leave everyone – including the “winner” – worse off.</p>
<p>As a former executive, I’ve managed large contracts as both a buyer and a seller. Now, as a <a href="https://haslam.utk.edu/people/profile/kate-vitasek">business professor</a>, I study these trading partner relationships, exploring what works in practice. My work supports what economic theorists and social scientists have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-493X.2008.00051.x">arguing for years</a>: The best results come when people collaborate to create long-term value instead of fighting for short-term wins.</p>
<h2>What game are you playing?</h2>
<p>Research into art, science and practice of collaborative approaches dates <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691130613/theory-of-games-and-economic-behavior">back to the 1940s</a> when the mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern used mathematical analysis to model competition and cooperation in living things. </p>
<p>Interest in collaborative approaches grew when researchers John Nash, John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten won a <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1994/summary/">Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences</a> in 1994. Their work inspired academics around the world to delve deeper into what’s known as <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/">game theory</a>.</p>
<p>Game theory is the study of the outcome of strategic interactions among decision makers. By using rigorous statistical methods, researchers can model what happens when people choose to cooperate or choose to take an aggressive, power-based approach to negotiation.</p>
<p>Many business leaders are taught strategies focusing on <a href="https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/shift-of-power-balance-in-business">using their power</a> and playing to win – often at the other party’s expense. In game theory, this is known as a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zero-sum">zero-sum game</a>, and it’s an easy trap to fall into.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rPWxm5m8Ljs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kate Vitasek lays out five rules for developing a value creation strategy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But not every game has a clear winner or loser. In economics, a win-win game is called a nonzero-sum game. In this sort of situation, people aren’t fighting over whose slice of a pie will be larger. They’re working to grow the pie for everyone.</p>
<p>A second dimension of game theory is whether people are playing a one-shot or a repeated game. Think of a one-shot game as like going to the flea market: You probably won’t see your trading partner again, so if you’re a jerk to them, the risk of facing the consequences is low.</p>
<p>An interesting twist uncovered by studying repeated games is that when one party uses their power in a negotiation, it creates the urge for the other party to retaliate. </p>
<p>The University of Michigan’s Robert Axelrod, a mathematician turned game theorist, coined this a <a href="https://ee.stanford.edu/%7Ehellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/axelrod.pdf">“tit-for-tat” strategy</a>. His research, perhaps best known in the book “<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/robert-axelrod/the-evolution-of-cooperation/9780465005642">The Evolution of Cooperation</a>,” uses statistics to show that when individuals cooperate, they come out better than when they don’t. </p>
<h2>The case for leaving money on the table</h2>
<p>Another Nobel laureate, American economist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/williamson/facts/">Oliver Williamson</a>, has offered negotiating <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/unpacking-oliver/">advice</a> that most would call a paradigm shift – and some, a heresy. </p>
<p>That advice? Always leave money on the table – especially when you’ll be returning to the same “game” again. Why? According to Williamson, it sends a powerful signal of trustworthiness and credibility to one’s negotiating partner when someone consciously chooses to cooperate and build trust. </p>
<p>The opposite approach leads to lost trust and what the Nobel laureate economist Oliver Hart calls “shading.” This is <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/hart/files/contractsasreferencepointsqje.pdf">a retaliatory behavior</a> that happens when a party isn’t getting the outcome it expected from a deal and feels the other party is to blame. </p>
<p>Simply put, noncollaborative approaches cause distrust and create friction, which adds transaction costs and inefficiencies.</p>
<p>The million-dollar question is whether collaborative approaches work in practice. And from my vantage point as a scholar, the answer is yes. In fields as diverse as <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/island-health/">health care</a> to <a href="https://www.vestedway.com/intel/">high-tech</a>, I see growing real-world evidence backing up the insights of game theory.</p>
<p>The lessons are simple yet profound: Playing a game together to achieve mutual interests is better than playing exclusively with self-interest in mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Vitasek works for the University of Tennessee where she studies and teaches organizations how to create win-win collaborative contracts. Her original research between 2003 and 2009 was funded by the United States Air Force.</span></em></p>‘Winning’ in negotiations isn’t always the best approach.Kate Vitasek, Professor of supply chain management, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219582024-01-25T18:21:40Z2024-01-25T18:21:40ZWhat UAW backing means for Biden − and why the union’s endorsement took so long<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571435/original/file-20240125-19-6chglq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7228%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> UAW President Shawn Fain, left, clasps hands with President Biden after endorsing his bid for reelection.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-and-shawn-fain-president-of-the-united-news-photo/1950953071?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers has endorsed President <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/politics/biden-uaw-endorsement/index.html">Joe Biden’s bid for reelection in 2024</a>. “Joe Biden has earned it,” said union president Shawn Fain on Jan. 24 as he announced the union’s decision to back the incumbent candidate.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation U.S. asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of labor, politics and business issues</a>, to explain why the UAW waited until now to endorse Biden and why this endorsement matters.</em></p>
<h2>Why is the UAW endorsement significant?</h2>
<p>The UAW’s endorsement provides symbolic and substantive support for the president.</p>
<p>Symbolically, it shores up Biden’s backing by organized labor – a critical constituency in an election year that promises a tight rematch between him and former President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Recent national polls have <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/">leaned at least slightly in Trump’s favor</a>, which means that Biden will have to mobilize voters in key battleground states like Michigan – where the largest number of the UAW’s <a href="https://uaw.org/abou">400,000 active and 580,000 retired</a> members live – to win reelection.</p>
<p>Substantively, the endorsement clears the way for the deployment of the political muscle of this union to help get out the vote for Biden in November. Historically, the United Auto Workers has tried to help its members and the public in general become well informed about politics and elections and sought to mobilize voters for the candidates it endorses.</p>
<p>Although the ranks of organized labor in the U.S., including the UAW, have generally declined significantly since their heyday in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers has a formidable network in battleground states like Michigan, where roughly 130,000 of its members reside. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan">Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020</a>, while <a href="https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/michigan/">Hillary Clinton lost it by just 11,600 votes</a> in 2016.</p>
<p>Unions made <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/unions-spent-big-boost-biden/">about US$27.5 million in contributions</a> to Biden’s 2020 campaign. While nominally a significant amount, it pales in comparison to the amount that businesses contributed. Biden’s 2020 bid was the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/2020-cycle-cost-14p4-billion-doubling-16/">first ever to draw more than $1 billion</a> from donors.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain announced the union’s endorsement of President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What led to the delay in endorsing?</h2>
<p>Rather than make an early endorsement of President Biden, in 2023 the United Auto Workers instead <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-uaws-fain-rocky-road-194104577.html">voiced dissatisfaction with the administration’s policy</a> of accelerating the transition to electric vehicles.</p>
<p>From the union’s perspective, the Biden administration had not given labor rights adequate protection as the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/03/auto-union-withholds-support-for-biden-citing-evs-00095136">Big Three automakers formed joint ventures</a> with foreign-based manufacturers of batteries to facilitate the industry’s transition to producing far more electric vehicles. </p>
<p>As the union prepared for its contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the global company that manufacturers Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles in the U.S. – the UAW hoped to exert whatever influence it could over lawmakers and the companies to open the joint ventures to union representation.</p>
<p>But Fain made it abundantly clear at the time, as he has done again and again, that Trump was not a viable alternative. He <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/politics/fain-trump-detroit/index.html">has repeatedly said</a> that Trump’s election in 2024 would be “a disaster.”</p>
<p>And to be sure, the UAW <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/joe-biden-endorsed-by-united-auto-workers-in-2020-presidential-campaign.html">didn’t endorse Biden’s 2020 candidacy until April 21 of that year</a>. It moved faster this time.</p>
<h2>How did UAW members vote in 2016 and 2020?</h2>
<p>Despite widespread union endorsements of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, a significant percentage of union members cast their ballots for Donald Trump in both elections.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/3">38% of union members voted for Trump</a> compared with 58% for Clinton, according to University of Michigan researchers. In 2020, 40% of voters in union households voted for Trump compared with 56% for Biden.</p>
<p>That’s in line with the UAW’s partisan breakdown in prior elections. About <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-auto-workers-endorsement-trump-election-ef4b26cd00fc67c4915f22e54b885866">60% of UAW members and retirees have historically voted for Democratic Party</a> candidates, according to Brian Rothenberg, a former union spokesman.</p>
<p>In close races, support from the United Auto Workers and the rest of organized labor could prove decisive, notwithstanding that the union’s membership has fallen from <a href="https://www.labor.ucla.edu/in-the-news/uaw-membership-peaked-at-1-5-million-workers-in-the-late-70s-heres-how-its-changed/">1.5 million in the late 1970s</a> to less than 400,000 today, and that overall the union membership rate in the U.S. workforce <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">has shrunk to 10%</a>. </p>
<p>And in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have numerous union members, the United Auto Workers’ efforts on behalf of presidential candidates may tip the balance. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t05.htm">Unions had roughly 564,000 members in Michigan</a> in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. </p>
<h2>Was there a chance that the UAW could have backed Trump?</h2>
<p>No chance whatsoever.</p>
<p>The United Auto Workers would have condemned itself within the Democratic Party and progressive circles if it had broken with tradition and not endorsed the party’s candidate. Endorsing Trump would have forfeited the UAW’s leverage to influence the Biden administration’s policies regarding the transition to vehicle electrification.</p>
<p>“Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that’s who he represents,” <a href="https://www.wxyz.com/news/uaw-endorses-president-joe-biden-for-2024-election-fain-calls-donald-trump-a-scab">Fain declared</a> before making the union’s endorsement. “If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member, he’d be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker. Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society.”</p>
<p>I believe that endorsing Trump would also have created an irreconcilable rift in the union itself with harmful fallout. And it would have alienated Biden, who showed his support for the union’s strikers in September 2023 by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-makes-history-striking-auto-workers-picket-line-rcna117348">standing with them on the picket line</a> – a first for any sitting president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While Marick Masters was serving as the director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly within the purview of the university.</span></em></p>In close races, support from the United Auto Workers and the rest of organized labor could prove decisive.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199032023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023-12-20T13:15:44Z2023’s historic Hollywood and UAW strikes aren’t labor’s whole story – the total number of Americans walking off the job remained relatively low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566377/original/file-20231218-27-2y9ix7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C502%2C5470%2C3511&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SAG-AFTRA captain Mary M. Flynn rallies fellow striking actors on a picket line outside Netflix studios in November 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXHollywoodStrikes/5dfb21d54c2f4414bd9f4adde9a2a0e1/photo?Query=hollywood%20strike&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2120&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/unions-workers-2023-strikes-companies-da09de12">More than 492,000 workers</a> – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, autoworkers, hotel cleaners, teachers and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/california-labor-strikes.html">during the first 10 months of 2023</a>.</p>
<p>That includes about <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">46,000 autoworkers who</a> went on strike for about six weeks, starting in mid-September. The United Auto Workers union won historic gains that have the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/business/economy/uaw-labor.html">potential to transform the industry</a> in its contracts with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler.</p>
<p>In addition, more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-workers-gain-21-wage-increase-in-pending-agreement-with-kaiser-permanente-after-historic-strike-215864">75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers</a> took part in the largest strike of U.S. health care workers to date.</p>
<p>This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">lull in U.S. strikes</a> and a <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/union-membership">decline in union membership</a> that began in the 1970s. Today’s strikes may seem unprecedented, especially if you’re under 50. While this wave constitutes a significant change following <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decades of unions’ losing ground</a>, it’s far from unprecedented.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=w6GUu_EAAAAJ">We’re sociologists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69FEXj0AAAAJ&hl=en">study the history of U.S. labor movements</a>. In our new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">Union Booms and Busts</a>,” we explore the reasons for swings in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">the share of working Americans in unions</a> between 1900 and 2015. </p>
<p>We see the rising number of strikes today as a sign that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers at a rally carrying strike signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543808/original/file-20230821-29-djs9wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maryam Rouillard raises her fist on Aug. 8, 2023, while taking part in a one-day strike by Los Angeles municipal workers to protest contract negotiations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-hearse-on-5th-avenue-with-a-sign-that-reads-new-news-photo/1311461424?adppopup=true">Apu Gomes/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Millions on strike</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">number of U.S. workers who go on strike in a given year</a> varies greatly but generally follows broader trends. After World War II ended, through 1981, between 1 million and 4 million Americans went on strike annually. By 1990, that number had plummeted. In some years, it fell below 100,000.</p>
<p>Workers by that point were clearly on the defensive for several reasons. </p>
<p>One dramatic turning point was the showdown between President Ronald Reagan and the country’s air traffic controllers, which culminated in a 1981 strike by their union – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/08/03/5604656/1981-strike-leaves-legacy-for-american-workers">Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization</a>. Like many public workers, air traffic controllers did not have the right to strike, but they called one anyway because of safety concerns and other reasons. Reagan depicted the union as disloyal and ordered that all of PATCO’s striking members be fired. The government turned to supervisors and military controllers as their replacements and <a href="https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike">decertified the union</a>.</p>
<p>That episode sent a strong message to employers that permanently replacing striking workers in certain situations would be tolerated.</p>
<p>There were also many <a href="https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/labor-relations-striking-balance-budd/M9781260260502.html">court rulings and new laws</a> that favored big business over labor rights. These included the passage of so-called <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">right-to-work laws</a> that provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces – without requiring the payment of union dues. Many conservative states, like South Dakota and Mississippi, have these laws on the books, along with states with more liberal voters – such as Wisconsin.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/union-membership-drops-to-record-low-in-2022-00078525">union membership plunged</a> from <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R47596.html">34.2% of the labor force in 1945</a> to around 10% in 2010, workers became less likely to go on strike.</p>
<p>Wages kept up with productivity gains when unions were stronger than they are today. Wages increased 91.3% as productivity grew by 96.7% between 1948 and 1973. That changed once union membership began to tumble. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/">Wages stagnated</a> from 1973 to 2013, rising only 9.2% even as productivity grew by 74.4%.</p>
<p><iframe id="euMoy" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/euMoy/9/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Prime conditions</h2>
<p>In general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979398203500402">strikes grow more common when economic conditions change</a> in ways that empower workers. That’s especially true with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-47d74791145f0224280ffe908b6e820a">tight labor markets</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-wholesale-federal-reserve-interest-rates-consumers-1838b302c99045749b0597853886d32c">high inflation</a> seen in the U.S. in recent years.</p>
<p>When there are fewer candidates available for every open job and prices are rising, workers become bolder in their demands for higher wages and benefits.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/800649">Political and legal factors</a> can play a role, too. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/labor-unions-during-great-depression-and-new-deal/">New Deal enhanced unions’ ability to organize</a>. During World War II, unions agreed to a no-strike pledge – although some workers continued to go on strike.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. <a href="https://www.umass.edu/lrrc/strikes">workers who went on strike peaked in 1946</a>, a year after the war ended. Conditions were ripe for labor actions at that point for several reasons. The economy was no longer so dedicated to supplying the military, pro-union New Deal legislation was still intact and <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/podcasts/best-my-ability-podcast/season-2-archive/episode-5-strike-wave">wartime strike restrictions</a> were lifted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Reagan’s crushing of the PATCO strike gave employers a green light to permanently replace striking workers in <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes">situations in which doing that was legal</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, as we describe in our book, employers can take many steps to discourage strikes. But labor organizers can sometimes overcome management’s resistance with creative strategies.</p>
<h2>New economic equations</h2>
<p>Between 1983 and 2022, the share of U.S. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">workers who belonged to unions fell by half, from 20.1%</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/19/majorities-of-adults-see-decline-of-union-membership-as-bad-for-the-u-s-and-working-people=">10.1%</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t reverse that decline, but it did change the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-job-vacancies-pay-raises-wage-war-74d1689d573e298be32f3848fcc88f46">balance of power between employers and workers</a> in other ways.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/">great resignation</a>,” a surge in the number of workers quitting their jobs during the pandemic, now seems to be over, or at least cooling down. The number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemp-per-job-opening.htm">unemployed people for every job opening</a> reached 4.9 in April 2020, plummeted to 0.5 in December 2021, and has remained low ever since. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, many workers have become more dissatisfied with their wages. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/25/teachers-strikes-us-low-pay-covid">strikes by teachers</a> that ramped up in 2018 responded to that frustration. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA">U.S. inflation, which soared to 8% in 2022</a>, has eroded workers’ purchasing power while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950">company profits</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">economic inequality</a> have continued to soar. </p>
<p>Technological breakthroughs that leave workers behind are also contributing to today’s strikes, as they did in other periods.</p>
<p>We’ve studied the role technology played in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&">printers’ strikes</a> of the 1890s following the introduction of the linotype machine, which reduced the need for skilled workers, and the <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/dock/1971_strike_history.shtml">longshoremen strike of 1971</a>, which was spurred by a drastic workforce reduction brought about by the <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-history-of-containerization-in-the-shipping-industry/">introduction of shipping containers</a> to transport cargo.</p>
<p>Those are among the precedents for the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/actors-strike-ends-hollywood-5769ab584bca99fe708c67d00d2ec241">actors and screenwriters</a> strikes of 2023, which hinged on the financial implications of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/residuals-hollywood-strike-actors-writers-7c32f386c910a11db4324875d99dc366">streaming in film and television</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">artificial intelligence in the production</a> of movies and shows.</p>
<p>Working conditions, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">health and safety concerns and time off</a>, have also been at the root of many recent strikes.</p>
<p>Health care workers, for example, are going on strike over safe <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nurses-strike-new-jersey-394eb774eea0add0a60c272c5b7819ac">staffing levels</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/railroad-paid-sick-time-negotiations-norfolk-southern-70327831f881dcf86a43e05d22a5bdd5">rail workers</a> voted to strike over sick days and time off, but were blocked from walking off the job by a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/">U.S. Senate vote and President Joe Biden’s signature</a>.</p>
<p>Time and again, when the conditions have been right, U.S. workers have gone on strike and won. Sometimes more strikes have followed, in waves that have the potential to transform workers’ lives. But it’s still too early to know when this wave will crest. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published <a href="https://theconversation.com/waves-of-strikes-rippling-across-the-us-seem-big-but-the-total-number-of-americans-walking-off-the-job-remains-historically-low-210673">Aug. 24, 2023</a>, with nearly complete data for the number of strikers in 2023 and additional details about several strikes.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stepan-Norris received funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Kerrissey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two labor scholars argue that the balance of power between workers and employers, which has been tilted toward employers for nearly a half-century, is beginning to shift.Judith Stepan-Norris, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, IrvineJasmine Kerrissey, Associate Professor of Sociology; Director of the Labor Center, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170642023-11-27T19:34:04Z2023-11-27T19:34:04ZNext on the United Auto Workers’ to-do list: Adding more members who currently work at nonunion factories to its ranks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560571/original/file-20231121-24-oer4wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C152%2C4872%2C3109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Tesla's workers be the next to approve a UAW contract?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/EarnsTesla/8d2415b3d23949aca5513ecd9c47f8ec/photo?Query=tesla&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3150&currentItemNo=65">AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Having negotiated “<a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">record contracts</a>” with the Big Three – and seen the bulk of its <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-uaw-says-64-workers-150358604.html">rank-and-file members approve them</a> – the United Auto Workers says its work isn’t done.</p>
<p>The union intends to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/20/uaw-strike-organizing-automakers">try once more</a> to persuade the rest of the U.S. auto industry’s workers to <a href="https://labornotes.org/2019/06/why-uaw-lost-again-chattanooga">join the union</a>.</p>
<p>“We’re going to organize like we’ve never organized before,” <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/03/tesla-toyota-in-uaws-sights-for-organizing-after-big-3-wins.html">said UAW President Shawn Fain</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">labor scholars</a> who have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EQEoODAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">studied union finances</a>, we believe this is a formidable objective. On top of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-buffalo-new-york-business-826b91456748c7167fe977d458aaba2d">intense corporate resistance</a> from the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/03/tesla-toyota-in-uaws-sights-for-organizing-after-big-3-wins.html">likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk</a>, there’s the high cost of waging expensive campaigns in states like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1200875078/south-non-union-uaw-strike-foreign-automakers">Tennessee and Alabama</a>, which have “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2021.1919183">right-to-work</a>” laws designed <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-resources">to discourage labor organizing</a>. </p>
<p>But the United Auto Workers appears to have the money, know-how and institutional infrastructure to launch these organizing campaigns.</p>
<h2>The other 57%</h2>
<p>About 146,000 UAW members are employed by General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the global company that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America. That’s down from <a href="https://money.cnn.com/1999/06/14/companies/uaw/">407,000 in 1999</a>.</p>
<p>So far, none of the autoworkers employed by the Big Three’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/business/uaw-ford-contract.html">foreign-based competitors</a> or the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/business/economy/ev-battery-union.html">U.S.-based electric vehicle manufacturers</a> belong to a union. Each of the Big Three has joint ventures with various foreign-based companies to produce batteries. The workers at <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/09/gm-lg-ev-battery-plant-uaw-union-vote.html">only one of these joint venture plants</a> have voted to join the UAW.</p>
<p>Today, the UAW represents <a href="https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm">43% of the U.S. automotive workforce</a> in vehicle manufacturing. The other 57%, roughly 190,000 workers, are employed by Toyota, Honda and other foreign companies, and Tesla or another <a href="https://evmagazine.com/top10/top-10-pure-play-ev-companies">domestic electric vehicle manufacturer</a>. Nonetheless, in comparison to other industries, the degree of unionization in the automotive industry remains about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">four times as high as for the workforce as a whole</a>.</p>
<p>Intermittent campaigns to persuade autoworkers at nonunion factories in places like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/10/tesla-workers-union-elon-musk">Fremont, California</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15/733074989/tennessee-workers-reject-union-at-volkswagen-plant-again">Chattanooga, Tennessee</a>, have <a href="https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/if-uaw-doesn-t-change-it-s-toast">failed over the past four decades</a>.</p>
<h2>Employer obstacles</h2>
<p>Many U.S. employers have a long <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315499093-11/human-resource-management-practices-worker-desires-union-representation-jack-fiorito">history of attempting to avoid unionization</a>.</p>
<p>One such tactic is providing nonunion employees with some of the benefits of belonging to a union, such as raises or better benefits, without the payment of union dues. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-honda-toyota-wage-increase-united-auto-workers-1349059944c75d7372f53d1ee6cf5cb2">Toyota, Honda, Hyundai</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/subaru-raise-us-plant-worker-wages-light-uaw-deals-with-detroit-automakers-ceo-2023-11-16/">Subaru</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/nissan-motor-hiking-wages-us-auto-plants-after-uaw-deal-2023-11-20/">Nissan all announced plans to increase</a> pay for their U.S. employees soon after the 2023 UAW strike concluded.</p>
<p>Fain calls this wave of raises for nonunion automotive workers the “<a href="https://youtu.be/V3bengdSGjY'">UAW bump</a>,” joking that UAW stands for “you are welcome.” His joke has two meanings: It’s a response to the thanks owed for the increased pay and it’s an invitation for workers employed by those companies to join the union he leads.</p>
<p>The UAW leader also quips that when the union’s new contracts expire in April 2028, it will be negotiating with “<a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/30/uaw-ford-shawn-fain-contract-deal">the Big Five or Big Six</a>” instead of just GM, Ford and Stellantis. In other words, he is predicting that the UAW will have won organizing campaigns by then with two or three more of the <a href="https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/top-10-largest-car-manufacturers-in-the-us/">automakers producing the most vehicles in the U.S.</a> – such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V3bengdSGjY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This UAW video features media coverage of union president Shawn Fain testifying in Congress and a string of raises for nonunion U.S. autoworkers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>UAW’s financial status</h2>
<p>In our book, “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003335474/trade-union-finance-marick-masters-raymond-gibney">Trade Union Finance: How Labor Organizations Raise and Spend Money</a>,” we explain that unions remained in relatively strong financial shape from 2006 through 2019 – a period that included the economic upheaval of the Great Recession.</p>
<p>For example, among the sample of 53 national unions whose finances we studied, 49 saw their member-based income from dues and other sources grow by more than 33% during this period.</p>
<p>The UAW’s shrinking ranks led it to raise its dues by 25% in 2014 to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/united-auto-workers-union-raises-dues-first-time-47-years-n121586">offset declining member-based income</a>.</p>
<p>The UAW has yet to disclose what it spent on the 2023 strike against the Detroit Three. Based on reported striker numbers and dates, we estimate that it cost the union approximately US$86 million just in payments to workers eligible for <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-strike-funds-a-labor-management-relations-expert-explains-213212">$500 weekly payments from its strike fund</a>.</p>
<p>That most likely left the union with nearly $750 million in its strike fund, which held roughly <a href="https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/uaw-strike-will-have-no-near-term-credit-effect-on-us-states-locals-21-09-2023">$825 million before the strike began</a>.</p>
<h2>Financing union organizing</h2>
<p>Organizing workers employed by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/business/tesla-union-uaw-strike/index.html">automakers that resist unions, such as Tesla</a>, can be expensive. </p>
<p>The union has to pay organizers and cover the organizers’ expenses, and it is responsible for the costs of complying with labor law requirements associated with holding union elections. We do not know the exact costs of organizing campaigns or how much unions spend on them. </p>
<p>We do know that the United Auto Workers spent $4.4 million in 2022 to pay its organizers, or 5.6% of the union’s <a href="https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=865078&rptForm=LM2Form">total payroll</a>. This level of expenditure pales in comparison to the more than $45 million the union <a href="https://uaw.org/tag/strike/">spent on strike benefits</a> for its members who went on strike that year – none of whom were employed in the automotive industry.</p>
<p>How can the UAW finance a massive organizing campaign to win over the workers at the likes of Tesla, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Hyundai? We have identified three means of supplementing traditional sources of revenue from dues.</p>
<p><strong>1: Get donations from other labor groups</strong></p>
<p>Unions are free to help out each other through donations made to one another.</p>
<p>One important precedent for this is from the UAW’s earliest days. In 1936, one year after the union got its start, John Lewis, at the time the head of the Committee for Industrial Organization, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/417956">gave the nascent United Auto Workers $100,000</a> – over $2.23 million adjusted for inflation – for its organizing efforts.</p>
<p>Labor unions can easily accept donations because they are <a href="https://blog.candid.org/post/unions-and-their-role-in-the-social-sector/">501(c)(5) nonprofits</a>. This designation means they <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/501(c)(5)">don’t have to pay any federal income tax</a>, although that exemption does not apply to the money they spend on electioneering and lobbying. Unlike charities, which in the U.S. are designated as 501(c)(3) organizations, <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/tax-treatment-of-donations-to-section-501c5-organizations">donations to unions are not tax deductible</a> for donors.</p>
<p><strong>2: Team up with other unions</strong></p>
<p>A second approach is for unions to pool their money for organizing another industrial sector. </p>
<p>We’ve found that the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers and the International Association of Machinists had a combined $513 million in working capital – money available for them to use as they see fit – in 2022. Some of those funds could help foot the bill for a concerted effort to persuade employees of nonunion automakers to join the union.</p>
<p>And the UAW could tap into these funds to supplement their spending on organizing personnel. </p>
<p><strong>3: Experiment with crowdfunding</strong></p>
<p>Third, rank-and-file members of the United Auto Workers, along with other manufacturing unions, could chip in to cover organizing costs through a <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-new-findings-shed-light-on-crowdfunding-for-charity-161491">crowdfunding campaign</a> by raising money online from donors.</p>
<p>Such a crowdfunding campaign might also draw donations from nonunion autoworkers who favor unionization, or anyone else who wants to see more autoworkers belonging to a union.</p>
<h2>Innovative tactics</h2>
<p>Spending more money on labor organizing will not suffice. The UAW will also need to rely on creativity and innovative thinking.</p>
<p>The challenges involved with winning over nonunion autoworkers will be far more formidable than its task in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-pull-out-all-stops-organizing-nonunion-automakers-2023-11-08/">negotiating the 2023 contracts with the Big Three</a>. </p>
<p>We believe that the UAW would be wise to again use the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/20/1207367334/the-uaw-strike-is-not-the-first-time-a-union-weaponized-the-element-of-surprise">element of surprise</a> as it did with its 2023 strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis. One key to its success was how it threw the companies off balance by unpredictably ratcheting up the number of facilities where workers had gone on strike.</p>
<p>Fain and his allies are bound to fare better if they again, as they did with the 2023 strike against the Big Three, <a href="https://www.wilx.com/2023/10/11/how-social-media-influences-uaw-strike/">shape the narrative</a> through the deft use of social media. That tactic helped the UAW garner grassroots support and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/labor-unions-auto-workers-poll-b6f0efba4892d1f5d2a829effd514f7d">keep public opinion on its side</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While Marick Masters was serving as the director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly within the purview of the university.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wooing those workers will be expensive and require a lot of creativity, since many of them are employed in ‘right-to-work’ states.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityRay Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164322023-10-29T15:04:03Z2023-10-29T15:04:03ZUnited Auto Workers union hails strike-ending deals with automakers that would raise top assembly-plant hourly pay to more than $40 as ‘record contracts’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556147/original/file-20231026-29-8u6y4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C2838%2C1684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 46,000 autoworkers gradually went on strike starting in mid-September.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-vehicle-sits-on-a-ford-dealerships-lot-on-october-03-news-photo/1715478064?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers union agreed on a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gm-reaches-tentative-deal-uaw-131907642.html">tentative new contract with General Motors on Oct. 30, 2023</a>, days after landing similar deals <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-strikes-ford-general-motors-stellantis-08a81503d72e44d4efa40549f684d5a2">with Ford Motor Co.</a> on Oct. 25 and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">Stellantis, the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles in North America</a>, on Oct. 28. The pending agreements have halted the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">industry’s longest strike in 25 years</a>. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">began on Sept. 15</a>, when the UAW’s prior contracts with all three automakers expired, and lasted more than six weeks. After gradually ramping up, the strike eventually included about 46,000 workers – roughly one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the three companies.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/25/ford-confirms-tentative-agreement-with-uaw.html">Ford released a statement in which it said it was “pleased</a>” to have reached a deal and “focused on restarting Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.” <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2023/10/28/stellantis-strike-uaw-deal/71360452007/">Stellantis</a>, likewise, looks forward to “resuming operations,” as one of its executives said in a statement. General Motors initially made no public statements.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Marick Masters, a Wayne State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TcpezG4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of labor and business issues</a>, to explain what’s in these contracts and their significance.</em></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1717337144572662025"}"></div></p>
<h2>What are the terms of the contract?</h2>
<p>According to several media reports and the union’s own announcements, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5">Ford’s tentative labor agreement</a> includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4½ years, as well as the restoration of a cost-of-living allowance the UAW lost in 2009.</p>
<p>In addition, the tentative agreements also will convert many temporary workers to full-time status, higher pay for temps, the right to go on strike over plant closures and significant increases in contributions to retirement plans.</p>
<p>By the end of the period covered by the Ford, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/business/economy/gm-uaw-contract-deal.html">GM</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">and Stellantis contracts</a>, the top worker wage at assembly plants will be <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/auto-workers-stellantis-reach-tentative-deal/7331209.html">more than US$40 an hour</a>. All three contracts will <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">expire on April 30, 2028</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-stellantis-tentative-contract-agreement-d32cb38791730c4c92a8b2112c205e59">The Stellantis deal</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">according to UAW officials</a>, is similar to the one reached with Ford in other ways – as, reportedly, is the one that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/27/gm-uaw-labor-talks.html">UAW agreed upon with GM</a>. </p>
<p>The Stellantis agreement also has provisions regarding specific North American plants, including the plant Stellantis had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-outline-tentative-deal-reopen-stellantis-illinois-plant-sources-2023-10-28/">idled earlier in 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois</a>, the UAW said. Stellantis has promised to add 5,000 new jobs at Belvidere and other factories over the next four years, in stark contrast to its previous intention to cut that many jobs during the same period, UAW President <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Shawn Fain said on Oct. 28</a>.</p>
<p>The Ford contract, likewise, calls for <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2023/10/29/uaw-ford-tentative-agreement-details-highlighter/71368266007/">more than $8 billion in investments in factories</a> and other facilities, according to the UAW.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="UAW members, some holding their children aloft, attend a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556153/original/file-20231026-26-93sj7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW members attended a rally in support of the labor union’s strike on Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-attend-a-rally-in-support-of-the-labor-union-strike-news-photo/1712273041?adppopup=true">Jim Vondruska/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why did workers feel the strike was necessary, and did they achieve their aims?</h2>
<p>The workers knew that the companies had enjoyed <a href="https://www.cbs58.com/news/auto-sales-are-falling-but-profits-are-surging-welcome-to-the-new-normal">big profits</a> over the past several years. GM, for example, earned <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/14/automakers-production-levels-decrease-profits">$10 billion in profits in 2021</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-co-auto-industry-detroit-business-97a5db2a4e15c45915aae123e0b3d9cb">$14.5 billion in 2022</a>.</p>
<p>After having made <a href="https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/uaw-workers-set-to-strike-seek-to-regain-concessions-lost-after-2008-recession">major economic concessions</a> to help the companies survive the Great Recession, stiff international competition and the <a href="https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/its-official-gm-files-for-bankruptcy-a-1508">2009 bankruptcies of GM</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/apr/30/chrysler-verge-bankruptcy-talks-collapse">and Chrysler</a> – before the latter became a division of Stellantis – UAW members believed they deserved what they’re calling a “record contract” for having contributed to “record profits.”</p>
<p>“The days of low-wage, unstable jobs at the Big Three are coming to an end,” <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1718394875253514341">Fain said on Oct. 28</a>. “The days of the Big Three walking away from the American working class, destroying our communities, are coming to an end.”</p>
<p>To forge its militant strategy, the union tore a page from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-strike-if-it-happens-should-channel-the-legacy-of-walter-reuther-who-led-the-union-at-the-peak-of-its-power-212324">playbook of labor leader Walter Reuther</a>, who led the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970. Reuther believed that workers deserved a fair share of corporate abundance – just like shareholders and customers.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The UAW released the full details of the Ford contract to all of its members who are Ford workers on Oct. 29, after its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/26/23933553/ford-uaw-tentative-agreement-2023-contract-highlights-gm-stellantis">leaders had signed off</a> on it. Rank-and-file members now have to ratify the deal for it to go into effect.</p>
<p>The same process will happen with Stellantis on Nov. 2. The separate deal the UAW negotiated with GM will also require ratification.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the autoworkers who went on strike will be returning to their jobs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1718394875253514341"}"></div></p>
<h2>How will this affect the automakers’ bottom line?</h2>
<p>Some analysts have estimated that Ford’s contract, if ratified, would add <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-uaw-reach-tentative-deal-235436345.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">$1.5 billion to the company’s annual labor costs</a>. Ford itself estimated that this could add up to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/uaw-stellantis-reach-tentative-agreement-on-new-four-year-labor-contract-1bc9c9f5?mod=business_lead_story">$900 in labor costs to each vehicle</a> rolling off its assembly lines. Ford has also estimated that the strike cost it about $1.3 billion in pretax profits.</p>
<p>To put these numbers into perspective, <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/26/third-quarter-2023-financial-results.html">Ford generated slightly more than $130 billion in revenue</a> in the first three quarters of 2023, and <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-motor-co-f-q3-221158213.html">almost $5 billion in profits</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/28/business/uaw-stellantis-deal/index.html">Stellantis</a> has not yet made public what it believes the strike has cost the company.</p>
<p>General Motors has said that the strike is costing the company more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/gm-uaw-tentative-agreement-labor-strike.html">$800 million</a>.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Oct. 30, after GM and the UAW reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly with the purview of the university.</span></em></p>Rank-and-file union members employed by the automakers have to ratify the new contracts before they become official.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146792023-10-06T12:31:51Z2023-10-06T12:31:51ZWhy the UAW union’s tough bargaining strategy is working<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552177/original/file-20231004-27-7fq66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5842%2C3665&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW union members picket in front of a Stellantis distribution center on Sept. 25, 2023, in Carrollton, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-NorthAmerica-PhotoGallery/c1ac21c35db54e70b1f39af3b7653bc2/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=455&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union isn’t backing down as it <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200357955/uaw-big-3-strike-auto-shawn-fain">bargains for more compensation and better benefits</a> in its new contracts with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/business/economy/shawn-fain-uaw-profile.html">Under the deft leadership</a> of its <a href="https://theconversation.com/historic-uaw-election-is-bringing-profound-union-leadership-changes-and-chances-of-more-strikes-and-higher-car-prices-200335">president, Shawn Fain</a>, and other officials elected in March 2023, the union has thrown the three companies off balance with a strike that began on Sept. 15 – the minute its prior contracts expired.</p>
<p>As of Oct. 6, the number of UAW members on strike from their Big Three jobs <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/10/02/uaw-strike-week-3-what-we-know-as-25k-workers-picket-big-three-talks-persist/">stood at 25,000</a> after a gradual climb – meaning that 1 in 6 of the union’s nearly 150,000 autoworkers were on the picket lines instead of going to work.</p>
<p>I’m a labor and business scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>. I’ve observed that the union’s bargaining strategy has three interconnected elements that match what <a href="https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-training-daily/negotiating-in-three-dimensions-2/">Harvard Program on Negotiations researchers</a> recommend: an emphasis on substance, processes affecting interpersonal relations, and the setup – or context.</p>
<h2>3-part strategy</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-chief-shawn-fain-disrupts-detroits-labor-tradition-2023-09-15/">Fain and his leadership</a> team have gotten the upper hand in all three regards.</p>
<p>First, it framed the negotiations by publicizing its members’ demands at the very beginning of formal talks. From the start, the union has clearly argued that the automakers’ “record profits” in recent years meant that autoworkers deserve <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/14/record-auto-profits-inequality-climate-crisis-ford-general-motors-stellantis">what it calls “record contracts”</a> to compensate them for past sacrifices, such as <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/economy/2023-10-03/behind-the-push-to-end-tiers-a-precarious-history-of-solidarity-in-the-uaw">lowering pay and reducing benefits</a> for newer hires.</p>
<p>So far, it looks like the UAW is making real gains on the substance of its demands. For example, by Oct. 3, <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/10/03/ford-makes-comprehensive-offer-to-uaw--record-pay-and-benefits--.html">Ford was offering a 26% pay raise</a>, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/day-workweek-46-raise-uaw-makes-audacious-demands/story?id=102926195">up from about 15% before the strike</a>, and the restoration of annual cost-of-living adjustments to keep up with inflation.</p>
<p>And on Oct. 6, Fain applauded GM’s acceptance of a key union demand: that all <a href="https://twitter.com/AFLCIO/status/1710359460521062858">workers at their electric-vehicle battery manufacturing plants</a> have the same working conditions and compensation as those who are making vehicles with internal combustion engines and transmissions. I see this as a monumental concession that signals to the other companies that it would be advisable for them to follow suit.</p>
<p>Second, the union unilaterally changed the bargaining process, starting with its optics. The UAW dispensed with the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/26/with-gm-contract-set-uaw-takes-its-fight-to-ford-and-fiat-chrysler.html">traditional handshake ceremonies</a> it had previously held with auto executives to kick off contract negotiations. “There is no point in having some pomp and circumstance and some big ceremony acting like we’re working together when we’re not,” <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/07/12/no-handshakes-uaw-leaders-visit-plants-as-high-stakes-contract-talks-begin-in-metro-detroit/">Fain told reporters in mid-July</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of participating in conciliatory photo-ops, the leadership held <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/cars/uaw-head-strike-big-three/index.html">meet-and-greets with rank-and-file UAW members</a> at factories belonging to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – the global automaker that makes Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles – where Fain declared that the union was ready to go on strike. </p>
<p>More significantly in terms of its processes, the UAW is on strike for the first time <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/15/1199673197/uaw-strike-big-3-automakers">against all three of the automakers</a>, having abandoned its prior practice of targeting one company at a time. Bargaining simultaneously with all three companies effectively pits them against each other. </p>
<p>One way Fain is doing that is by expanding picket lines in accordance with the progress or lack thereof each of the three automakers makes in meeting the UAW’s demands. Pressure on the companies is building with rolling deadlines at which additional strike sites are announced. </p>
<p>This strategy has led the companies to make concessions, with the union barely having to reciprocate. Although the UAW is now <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uaw-strike-what-are-their-demands-detroit-big-three-detroit/">seeking a 36% increase in pay</a>, down from 46%, it has not ratcheted down many of its other demands.</p>
<p>Third, the union has successfully used social media to get its narrative across and to <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/uaw-strike-polling">rally public support</a> for its <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.aspx">fight with the automakers</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best evidence that the union’s outreach strategy is succeeding is that Joe Biden became the first sitting president to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/09/26/remarks-by-president-biden-at-united-auto-workers-picket-line/">join strikers on a picket line</a> when he made a trip to Belleville, Michigan, on Sept. 26. Once there, Biden expressed support for the UAW’s cause.</p>
<p>The UAW has <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-releases-new-video-corporate-greed-whats-really-going-auto-industry/">repeatedly accused the companies of being greedy</a>, often by pointing to what their top executives make: The CEOs of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis each received between <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/auto-ceos-make-about-300-times-what-their-median-worker-is-paid-heres-how-that-stacks-up-cefc9a5">$21 million and $29 million in compensation</a> in 2022.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2sgkOVS_Ko?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain has emphasized themes such as corporate greed in the union’s social media campaigns.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Collaborative vs. adversarial</h2>
<p>Research on labor-management negotiations has underscored two basic approaches to bargaining: <a href="https://www.pon.harvard.edu/shop/getting-to-yes-negotiating-agreement-without-giving-in/">collaborative</a> and <a href="https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/mind-and-heart-of-the-negotiator-the/P200000006425/9780135641262">adversarial</a>. </p>
<p>Early on, collective bargaining in the U.S. auto industry was the latter. </p>
<p>By the late 1970s, as the <a href="https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/foreign-invasion-imports-transplants-change-auto-industry-forever">Big Three lost market share</a> to foreign automakers, the UAW was forced into a concessionary bargaining mode. It compromised on pay and benefits to enable manufacturers to compete against nonunion employers – <a href="https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/chicago-fed-insights/2023/recent-uaw-contracts-ford-gm-stellantis">especially in 2007 and 2009</a> amid weak demand for new vehicles.</p>
<p>In 2023, the UAW has declared those days over.</p>
<p>The union is instead focused on what <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-strike-if-it-happens-should-channel-the-legacy-of-walter-reuther-who-led-the-union-at-the-peak-of-its-power-212324">Walter Reuther</a>, the UAW’s longtime leader, called “<a href="https://uaw.org/walter-reuther-quote-collection/">the sharing of economic abundance</a>.”</p>
<p>To implement its new strategy, the union is relying on several <a href="https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/batna/10-hardball-tactics-in-negotiation/">hard-bargaining tactics</a>: extreme demands, personal attacks, threats and warnings, rolling deadlines and holding unpredictable strikes that are the same for all three companies.</p>
<p><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/day-workweek-46-raise-uaw-makes-audacious-demands/story?id=102926195">Fain himself described</a> the union’s initial demands as “audacious.” </p>
<p>On top of a roughly 46% wage increase, it sought the restoration of annual cost-of-living adjustments, retiree health care and defined-benefit pensions, the elimination of separate wage tiers for longtime and newer workers and increases in profit-sharing. The UAW also sought a 32-hour work week with pay for 40 hours of labor and the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-union-wage-increase-jobs-bank-b8370b11bd692191d9ee3080001ef358">restoration of jobs banks</a> – an abolished system that paid workers at closed factories who did community service.</p>
<p>Some analysts have estimated that accepting all of these conditions <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/uaw-strike-tesla-labor-costs-baf8b897">would more than double</a> labor costs for the three automakers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Biden, in blue, speaking into a megaphone near several people dressed in red in front of signs saying GM and UAW." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552182/original/file-20231004-24-hjr1vh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden addressed striking United Auto Workers members on the picket line outside a GM facility on Sept. 26, 2023, in Van Buren Township, Mich.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden/881fa5d8d9fc45b99ec615befe6f9c3f/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=455&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Signs of success</h2>
<p>I think it’s clear that the union caught the companies flat-footed in response to this unconventional approach and that the Big Three are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/04/uaw-strike-automaker-offers/">making significant concessions</a> in terms of raising pay for the lowest-paid workers.</p>
<p>At the same time, gaps do remain between the union’s demands and what the companies are offering, especially in terms of across-the-board pay increases.</p>
<p>For example, Ford and Stellantis have not yet agreed to the UAW’s demands regarding equal pay, benefits and job protections for <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/29/uaw-strike-ford-ceo-ev-battery-plants">electric-vehicle manufacturing workers</a>. And there seems to be no progress toward shortening the work week to four days from five – which may have been more of an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/11/1198394085/uaw-big-3-automakers-4-day-work-week-shawn-fain-detroit">optimistic ask than a hard demand</a>.</p>
<p>But with a little give-and-take, I have little doubt that the parties will resolve these matters. And despite this high-stakes dispute, I believe it’s possible for the automakers to wind up with a win if they can accentuate the common interests that bind labor and management to their shared future success.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Oct. 6, 2023, with details about a new development involving the UAW’s negotations with General Motors.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University from 2009 through 2019, the Center received grants from the Detroit Three's joint training centers with the United Auto Workers to pursue education and research on unions and labor-management relations. These grants were operating strictly with the purview of the university. </span></em></p>The companies are making more generous offers, and the union is commanding support from the general public and the president of the United States.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2137252023-09-22T23:09:02Z2023-09-22T23:09:02ZUnion and execs need to shift gears fast once UAW strike is over – transition to EV manufacturing requires their teamwork<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549612/original/file-20230921-22-h1rcv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=183%2C16%2C5369%2C3521&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW members and leaders march in Detroit on Sept. 15, 2023 – the first day of the union's strike.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrike/32bf9ce4bc70471a9008efa76adaf5b4/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=441&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union is ramping up its <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-launch-historic-strike-3-questions-answered-213518">strike against General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the global company that makes Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles – and getting closer to a deal with Ford.</p>
<p>About 5,600 UAW members at <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uaw-ford-stellantis-general-motors-strike-labor-4132aa222c9a4456415af480d6fafa98">38 General Motors and Stellantis</a> distribution centers for auto parts in 20 states walked off the job on Sept. 22, 2023, after an announcement by UAW President Shawn Fain.</p>
<p>Workers at the only Ford plant affected by the strike since it <a href="https://apnews.com/article/strike-auto-workers-ford-gm-stellantis-f948704cce3d6dc9ca484142c5d0d98e">began on Sept. 15</a> will remain off the job. The total number of UAW members involved in the strike stands at about 18,300. </p>
<p>Under <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/22/uaw-strike-shawn-fain-00117091">Fain’s leadership</a>, the union is <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uaw-shawn-fain-leadership-who-is-shawn-fain/">taking an adversarial approach</a>: It’s railing against what it describes as the “poverty wages” UAW members earn while denouncing the automakers’ CEOs as “greedy” and vowing to “<a href="https://www.wane.com/top-stories/with-no-deal-uaw-vows-to-expand-strike-will-fort-wayne-workers-hit-the-picket-line/">wreck their economy</a>.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=a1wi_lQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">scholar of employment relations</a>, I think this strike is too narrowly focused on making up for the wages and benefits autoworkers have lost in recent years. But another big objective is ensuring that autoworkers will have good jobs once <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/business/electric-vehicles-uaw-gm-ford-stellantis.html">most U.S.-made vehicles are electric-powered</a>. </p>
<p>This dispute alone will not resolve this larger objective. Rather, I believe management and labor will need to swiftly move on following the strike and work together constructively to meet that goal.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1705239662296473785"}"></div></p>
<h2>UAW’s demands</h2>
<p>The union is demanding an end to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/20/this-fight-is-for-everybody-us-autoworkers-strike-to-restore-the-middle-class">concessions it made to the three companies</a> during the financial crisis that began in 2007. Its members employed by Ford, GM and Stellantis have experienced a <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/uaw-automakers-negotiations/">19% decline in their wages</a>, after accounting for inflation, since 2008. </p>
<p>The union also wants the automakers – sometimes called the Detroit Three – to abolish <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/20/1200357955/uaw-big-3-strike-auto-shawn-fain">the tiered wage system</a>, which pays new employees far less than more experienced workers, even for the same work. The UAW initially said it was seeking a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/what-know-uaw-strike-auto-companies-ford-general-motors-rcna103725">wage increase of 40%</a> over four years and the restoration of a <a href="https://uawd.org/cola/">cost-of-living allowance</a> that would link wages to inflation.</p>
<p>In addition to these demands, the UAW wants <a href="https://www.plansponsor.com/is-the-uaws-demand-for-return-of-pensions-a-realistic-ask/">defined-benefit pensions</a> for all workers restored, company-paid health benefits for retirees reestablished and the right to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/day-workweek-46-raise-uaw-makes-audacious-demands/story?id=102926195">strike over plant closures</a> guaranteed. Other demands include more paid time off and seeing all temporary workers made permanent. It has also called for a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/19/why-uaw-auto-workers-want-a-32-hour-workweek.html">32-hour work week</a> without a pay cut.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man in a blue jacket and white t-shirt surrounded by journalists holding microphones and recording devices" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549615/original/file-20230921-26-bke2ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks to reporters about the UAW contract talks on Sept. 13, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersCEOPay/1fbaeedd4edf4812aab98b67db0617ec/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=441&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Precedents for working together</h2>
<p>Although the strike has emphasized the goal of boosting future autoworker pay and benefits, I believe that workers and management can look to the past for ideas that might help them move forward. </p>
<p>GM’s Saturn partnership offers one potential model. </p>
<p>The company’s approach to its <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/features/saturn-cars-history-general-motors-feature/">Saturn brand of compact vehicles</a>, launched in 1985, was unique in many respects. Its governance structure was characterized by shared decision-making at different levels throughout the plant. The local union was a <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801438738/learning-from-saturn/">full partner in virtually all business decisions</a>. </p>
<p>GM invested billions of dollars in this venture, through which it tried to compete with Japanese imports and transplants that were quickly eroding GM’s market share. Saturns were designed differently than other U.S. vehicles, but what made those vehicles special was <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA276889.pdf">the extent to which labor</a> <a href="https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/2bc7da28-acc6-4a3d-af21-1c583b784136/content">shared the responsibility</a> for running Saturn’s main factory. </p>
<p>The Saturn partnership was hard to maintain, especially following the <a href="http://www.saturnfans.com/Company/2007/rogersmithdies.shtml">departure of Roger B. Smith</a>, the General Motors CEO who had pushed hard for it. The company <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123500373416017943">stopped making Saturns in 2009</a>, but the former subsidiary’s overall approach of involving workers in decisions about their jobs and the manufacturing process remains as critical today as it was in its heyday.</p>
<p>I would encourage the auto industry to again invoke the spirit of the Saturn venture, which emphasized the collaboration and partnership of labor and management in the production of high-quality, world-class vehicles. Only this time, the vehicles will be EVs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sporty silver two-door sedan" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549828/original/file-20230922-27-tgj5gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two Saturn salesmen look at a Saturn Sky Roadster in San Jose, Calif., weeks before all Saturn dealerships closed in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Saturn/e85314d7d19d40ab9bf4f45683fd5c50/photo?Query=saturn%20sky&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Paul Sakuma</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>GM offers another model for positive union-management relations.</p>
<p>About 20 years ago, its Lansing-Grand River assembly plant in Michigan began to engage in a similar example of what I call <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001979390906300104">joint responsibility unionism</a>. Management and the local UAW union established a contractual commitment to work together to continually improve production by systematically solving problems and increasing productivity.</p>
<p>Management and the local UAW union established a contractual commitment to work together to continually improve production by systematically solving problems and increasing productivity.</p>
<p>The local union and management hold each other accountable for keeping costs down and quality high. The plant, which assembles <a href="https://www.gm.com/company/facilities/lansing-grand-river">Cadillacs and Chevy Camaros</a>, continues this approach successfully today.</p>
<h2>Shift the focus to the future</h2>
<p>The UAW is pointing to the billions of dollars in <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/26/swec-j26.html">profits auto companies are currently getting</a> when it demands a bigger piece of the pie. The companies counter that rapidly increasing EV production is costly.</p>
<p>GM, Ford and Stellantis already plan to invest more than <a href="https://www.atlasevhub.com/data_story/210-billion-of-announced-investments-in-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-headed-for-the-u-s/">US$100 billion in electric vehicle manufacturing</a>. As production shifts away from vehicles with internal combustion engines that burn gasoline or diesel fuel, the number of autoworkers needed to build them will decline. <a href="https://energyright.com/ev-draft/how-do-an-evs-components-compare">EVs have fewer parts</a>.</p>
<p>Ford and Volkswagen, for example, have estimated that they’ll eventually need <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-electric-car-auto-industry-jobs-layoffs-employment-ford-2022-8">30% less labor due to the EV transition</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">Undergoing this transformation</a> with labor and management at loggerheads can’t possibly benefit the UAW or the auto companies. </p>
<p>Instead, they’ll need to focus on finding solutions together that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-electric-car-auto-industry-jobs-layoffs-employment-ford-2022-8">increase productivity</a>, build a skilled workforce and efficiently convert plants that make conventional vehicles today to EV factories tomorrow. In so doing, the UAW is more likely to meet its goal of seeing those EV factories employ its members.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Berg receives funding from Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p>Building an auto industry for the future that serves the needs of workers, companies and consumers alike will require innovative partnerships between the union and management.Peter Berg, Professor of Employment Relations; Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135182023-09-15T12:37:05Z2023-09-15T12:37:05ZUS autoworkers launch historic strike: 3 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548348/original/file-20230914-1089-crn4qo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2991%2C2065&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">United Auto Workers members rally after marching in the Detroit Labor Day Parade on Sept. 4, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-auto-workers-members-and-others-gather-for-a-rally-news-photo/1645162801">Bill Pugliano via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The United Auto Workers union, or UAW, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-autoworkers-may-wage-a-historic-strike-against-detroits-3-biggest-automakers-with-wages-at-ev-battery-plants-a-key-roadblock-to-agreement-210037">has told workers at three factories to go on strike</a> after failing to agree on new contracts with each of Detroit’s major automakers. The contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023. By midnight, the union <a href="https://uaw.org/stand-strike-begins-big-three/">posted a strike declaration on its website</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The strike will force General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the global company that builds Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles in North America – to halt some of their operations. “Tonight for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/uaw.union/videos/1047762633322736">UAW President Shawn Fain</a> announced about two hours before the negotiation deadline passed without a contract. The union is seeking higher pay, better benefits and assurances that large numbers of its members will work in the automakers’ <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/14/uaw-strike-demands-negotiations/">growing number of electric-vehicle factories</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation U.S. asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0KmQgfIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Joshua Murray</a>, a sociologist who studies the automotive industry and its workers, to discuss the UAW’s strategy and explain why this strike is significant.</em></p>
<h2>1. How important is it that this strike is affecting all three Detroit automakers?</h2>
<p>Until now, the UAW had always gone on strike against one of the companies at a time. And in recent years, all workers employed by that automaker had walked off the job. That’s what happened in the previous UAW strike. In 2019, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/25/uaw-united-auto-workers-general-motors-strike-deal">48,000 General Motors autoworkers refused to work</a> for 40 days. The UAW used this same tactic in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/automobiles/auto-strikes-history.html">strikes against GM in 2007 and 1970</a>.</p>
<p>While holding a strike against a few key plants breaks with recent UAW practices, it’s a strategy deeply rooted in the union’s history. <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW/status/1702083943174897746">UAW President Shawn Fain has invoked</a> the 1936-37 action known as the <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/S/Sit-Down2">Great Flint Sit-Down Strike</a>, when workers targeted what they referred to as General Motors’ “<a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p011993">mother plants</a>.”</p>
<p>Workers took over the plants by sitting down at their work stations at the end of the day and refusing to leave. By the time the strike was over, GM had agreed to sign a contract for the first time with the UAW. The union gained hundreds of thousands of new members, and <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/february/flint-michigan-sit-down-strike">autoworker pay grew sharply</a> in the months that followed.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/682956">Flint strike demonstrated</a> that strategically targeting a few factories can maximize the pressure put on companies, while minimizing both the number of workers affected and length of time affected workers must remain idle.</p>
<p>The UAW’s use of a similar approach now will reduce the risk of the union exhausting its <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-strike-funds-a-labor-management-relations-expert-explains-213212">US$825 million strike fund</a>, from which it must pay $500 per week to every UAW member who walks off the job.</p>
<p>Fain is calling the new approach a “<a href="https://uaw.org/standup/">stand-up strike</a>.” </p>
<p>“This strategy will keep the companies guessing,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/uaw.union/videos/1047762633322736">he said in livestreamed remarks</a> shortly before the strike officially began. “It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining.”</p>
<p>Although the strike is starting at just a few plants, the union may halt all production later on. “If we need to go all out, we will,” <a href="https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/live-amid-looming-strike-uaw-president-shawn-fain-provides-updates-on-negotiations-with-detroit-3">Fain said</a>. “Everything is on the table.”</p>
<p>About 13,000 UAW workers at three sites – a GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Stellantis assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-targeted-strikes-general-motors-stellantis-ford-a0b4b8b66e2001230fda0f2114ef78a0">a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan</a> – are the first to participate in this strike.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a black-and-white photo, several striking autoworkers read newspapers, sitting on car seats placed on the ground like sofas. They ignore the unfinished chassis behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548549/original/file-20230915-17-5v4z7k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sit-down strikers lounge at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, in 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dick Shelton/U.S. Farm Security Administration via Library of Congress</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. How would you define success or failure for the UAW’s new strategy?</h2>
<p>To understand why the union chose this strategy over a full-out work stoppage, it’s important to understand the nature of strikes and what makes them successful.</p>
<p>In the book “<a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/wrecked">Wrecked: How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete</a>,” sociologist Michael Schwartz and I analyzed the history of labor relations and production systems in the U.S. and Japanese auto industries to better understand the decline of Detroit’s Big Three automakers. In the process, we learned what determined the level of success of previous auto strikes. </p>
<p>A strike is essentially a <a href="https://economics.fandom.com/wiki/Chicken_game">game of chicken</a> between workers and management. Workers threaten the company’s viability by withholding their labor, going without paychecks to halt production. Companies protect themselves from strikes by stockpiling inventory so they can keep sales going. Workers protect themselves via their strike funds. </p>
<p>Generally, <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-strike-if-it-happens-should-channel-the-legacy-of-walter-reuther-who-led-the-union-at-the-peak-of-its-power-212324">strikes succeed</a> when they hurt a company’s bottom line so much that executives decide it makes financial sense to give in to the workers’ demands.</p>
<p>Strikes fail when workers can’t create enough disruption to pressure the company to give in before strike funds run out. They also fail when workers give in before securing a contract in line with their demands, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6mtdg6.15">potentially ending up worse off</a> than if they had never walked off the job.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">Fain, who was elected UAW president in March 2023</a>, and the rest of his new leadership team seem to recognize the importance of surprising management and picking strategic targets in a way that many of the union’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-united-auto-workers-gm-strike-is-headed-for-failure-123945">previous leaders did not</a>. I believe that the UAW is likely to ultimately have more success with this strike than it has had in decades.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1702539628002119861"}"></div></p>
<h2>3. Is this strike likely to be historically significant?</h2>
<p>No doubt about it. No <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/14/business/deadline-uaw-strike-negotiations/index.html">Ford workers had gone on strike in the U.S. since 1978</a>. Chrysler workers, who are now employed by Stellantis, <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2007/10/10/news/companies/uaw_chrysler_deal/">last went on strike in 2007</a>. And U.S. autoworkers are targeting GM, Ford and Stellantis simultaneously for the first time in the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/members/uaw-through-the-decades/">88-year history</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s not yet clear how historically significant it will be. </p>
<p>If the UAW’s “stand-up” strike strategy succeeds, I think it’s likely that other labor organizers will embrace it too – potentially improving the leverage other workers have in their contract negotiations and strikes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Murray has received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. </span></em></p>A work stoppage hitting the three largest American automakers at the same time is unprecedented.Joshua Murray, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2132122023-09-12T12:29:16Z2023-09-12T12:29:16ZWhat are strike funds? A labor-management relations expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548479/original/file-20230915-31-ys5ifx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C25%2C5626%2C3521&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking United Auto Workers picket at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., shortly after midnight Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrike/bfb295348888431e9f0df76f97963033/photo?Query=uaw&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1960&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When people go on strike, their employers don’t pay them. That makes it <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-survive-a-strike">hard for workers who have walked off the job to keep paying their bills</a>. Union members have an advantage during strikes because they can get help with housing, food and other <a href="https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/strike-fund/">essential expenses through payments from strike funds</a>.</p>
<p>These payments only cover basic expenses and generally don’t fully replace lost income.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Trade-Union-Finance-How-Labor-Organizations-Raise-and-Spend-Money/Masters-Gibney/p/book/9781003335474">Members pay dues and fees</a> to finance their unions. Every month, members of the United Auto Workers, for example, pay the <a href="https://uaw.org/dues-faq/">equivalent of what they earn in two hours</a> to their union. New members can also be required to pay a one-time initiation fee that’s much higher. The <a href="https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/membership-costs">Screen Actors Guild’s initiation fee is US$3,000</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond covering day-to-day operations, union dues accumulate for future uses, including strike funds. Once a strike is authorized, members in good standing are eligible to receive either a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of their earnings as outlined in the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-UAW-Constitution.pdf">constitution and bylaws</a>. </p>
<p>Union members have traditionally reported to a local union’s office on a specific day and time to pick up their strike benefits. Some unions are seeing if they can rely instead on <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2023/09/11/uaw-strike-pay-signup-detroit-three-bargaining/70822926007/">electronic distribution systems</a>.</p>
<h2>Why strike funds matter</h2>
<p>When unions have amassed large strike funds, it can force employers to take the threat of a strike seriously because it signals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12374">workers can stay off the job</a> longer. That, in turn, can help unions win more of their demands during contract negotiations.</p>
<p>Other sources of financial support during strikes are limited. </p>
<p>Two states, New York and New Jersey, allow workers to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/where-workers-on-strike-can-qualify-for-unemployment-benefits.html">collect unemployment benefits while they’re on strike</a>. <a href="https://voiceofoc.org/2023/09/a-bill-allowing-striking-workers-to-collect-unemployment-heads-to-gov-newsom/">California’s legislature approved a similar measure on Sept. 14, 2023</a>. But for the most part, U.S. workers can’t get jobless benefits during strikes.</p>
<p>Charity can play a role as well, depending on the industry. Some of the screenwriters and actors who went on strike in mid-2023 have been getting support from nonprofits like the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-strikes-donations-actors-writers-0a8df24c6d73f4075df32f5143592cce">Entertainment Community Fund</a> and the <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/sag-aftra-strike-celebrity-donations">SAG-AFTRA Foundation</a> – to which celebrities like George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey have each given at least $1 million to help Hollywood workers get by while they’re not getting paychecks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C82%2C4118%2C2526&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women on a picket line holding signs saying that the Writer's Guild and SAG AFTRA unions are on strike." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C82%2C4118%2C2526&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547594/original/file-20230911-29-h1abcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor and writer Marissa Carpio pickets with SAG-AFTRA members in front of Netflix offices in August 2023 in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marissa-carpio-joins-sag-aftra-members-as-they-maintain-news-photo/1636100727?adppopup=true">John Nacion/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>United Auto Workers on strike</h2>
<p>The UAW went on strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – the company that makes Chrysler vehicles – after its negotiations with the three Detroit-based automakers didn’t <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-general-motors-stellantis-ford-strike-0c41761e174236151a29cc698f5dc7d5">result in a contract by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023</a>.</p>
<p>The union has committed to <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-delegates-vote-increase-strike-pay-500-per-week-available-first-day-strike/">making weekly payments from its strike fund of $500 per week</a>, <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">plus some benefits</a>, to all striking workers. Its members’ pay varies, but the highest earners at unionized U.S. automotive assembly factories can make up to <a href="https://fox59.com/news/national-world/why-the-united-auto-workers-union-is-poised-to-go-on-strike-this-week/">$32 an hour</a> – $1,280 per week – plus benefits.</p>
<p>The UAW has about <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/25/uaw-strike-fund-gm-stellantis-ford">$825 million in its strike fund</a>. That money could probably last for 12 weeks if all of its <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">nearly 150,000 members</a> working for automakers were to go on strike at one time. But the union is initially targeting <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/14/uaw-strikes-ford-gm-stellantis.html">only three factories</a>, with 13,000 workers walking off the job. This tactic will help ensure that its workers can stay on strike longer.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Sept. 15, 2023, to indicate that the UAW strike had begun and that the California legislature had passed a bill allowing workers on strike to get unemployment benefits.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When unions amass large sums of money to parcel out to workers, it can give them more leverage in negotiations with employers.Ray Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2123242023-08-31T13:56:29Z2023-08-31T13:56:29ZUnited Auto Workers strike – if it happens – should channel the legacy of Walter Reuther, who led the union at the peak of its power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545293/original/file-20230829-27-rgt0fi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=905%2C555%2C3260%2C2298&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Walter Reuther, center, shakes hands with a Ford executive after agreeing on a three-year contract in 1967.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/after-announcement-that-agreement-had-been-reached-by-the-news-photo/517772622?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers are engaged in high-stakes labor negotiations that could lead to the union’s first simultaneous strike against all of Detroit’s Big Three automakers: <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/electric-vehicle-jobs-uaw-strike-biden">General Motors, Ford and Stellantis</a>, the company that owns Chrysler.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/25/uaw-strike-authorization-vote/">decades of making concessions</a> to their employers, the union’s <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2023/08/12/uaw-negotiations-stellantis-leader-pushes-back/70581896007/">demands for pay increases</a> and better benefits exceed what some <a href="https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/08/potential-uaw-strike-would-cost-billions-analysis-shows/">automotive industry executives say are reasonable</a>. Unless the two sides reach an agreement by midnight on Sept. 14, 2023, <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of the 150,000 UAW members</a> employed by the three companies have authorized their leaders to call a strike.</p>
<p>It would be the industry’s first walkout since a <a href="https://www.apnews.com/83b9a7d6f2b04d0da468c97ccf39b095">monthlong GM strike in 2019</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/21/uaw-big-three-automakers-union-contract-negotiations">UAW President Shawn Fain</a>, elected in March 2023, and other new UAW leaders have a decidedly more militant approach than their recent predecessors – some of whom <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">landed in prison</a> after being <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">convicted of embezzling</a> union funds.</p>
<p>As a labor and business scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>, I believe that whether or not the union does hold a strike against one or more of the automakers in the near future, it would benefit from heeding some lessons from its own past. In particular, it should consider the legacy of <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p066269">Walter Reuther</a>, the labor leader who served as the UAW’s president from 1946 until his death in 1970. By balancing his vision and aspirations with pragmatism, Reuther showed that bold labor leaders can score big wins.</p>
<h2>Miscalculations can be costly for workers</h2>
<p>Although strikes can lead to victories, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.867">workers can end up worse off</a> than they would have been had they not walked off the job. People who go on strike can even end up unemployed. That means unions must carefully calculate whether the risk of going on strike is worth taking.</p>
<p><a href="https://jacobin.com/2021/08/reagan-patco-1981-strike-legacy-air-traffic-controllers-union-public-sector-strikebreaking">Strikes that fail to meet their objectives</a>, often due to miscalculations by unions of their power to win concessions from employers, litter U.S. labor history. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2006.0140">failures were particularly common in the 1980s and 1990s</a>, as companies and other employers demanded concessions and replaced workers during and after strikes.</p>
<p>That trend began with the ill-fated strike by 11,500 air traffic controllers in August 1981. Soon after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/robert-poli-who-led-air-traffic-controllers-union-in-1981-strike-dies-at-78/2014/09/23/8ccd0e44-4267-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html">Robert E. Poli assumed its presidency</a>, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers went on strike. The union, known as PATCO, underestimated President Ronald Reagan’s resolve and <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-patco-strike-reagan-and-the-roots-of-labors-decline">overestimated its members own irreplaceability</a>.</p>
<p>Reagan’s swift termination of the striking workers and his success in replacing them with new employees destroyed PATCO and normalized the replacement of strikers by employers.</p>
<p>More strikes would lead to similar failures, including one by <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6mtdg6.15">Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota</a>, which lasted 13 months starting in August 1985. A <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1100889856">15-month walkout by International Paper workers</a> at several plants in 1987 and 1988 was also disastrous for the strikers.</p>
<p>In both cases, the local union leaders launched prolonged strikes over corporate demands for wage cuts and other givebacks to compete with their lower-cost nonunion rivals. The unions underestimated management’s resolve and proved incapable of conducting effective publicity campaigns or <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6mtdg6.15">applying other kinds of pressure to combat the companies</a>. </p>
<p>The companies fired strikers, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1986/02/16/the-hormel-strike-was-doomed/eaf87a1c-b393-44d7-aedd-6316cd8078e9/">replacing them permanently</a> with other workers.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Walter Reuther</h2>
<p>A UAW strike today could also miss the mark, given that Detroit’s Big Three face <a href="https://www.carpro.com/blog/full-year-2021-sales-report-with-most-brands-reporting">relentless competition from foreign automakers</a>, along with <a href="https://evadoption.com/ev-sales/evs-percent-of-vehicle-sales-by-brand/">Tesla and newer U.S.-based companies that only manufacture electric vehicles</a>. What’s more, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/13/ford-vs-gm-same-industry-two-increasingly-different-companies.html">GM, Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/february/stellantis-announces-155-million-investment-in-three-indiana-plants-to-support-north-american-electrification-goals">Stellantis are spending billions</a> to phase in large-scale EV production.</p>
<p>Here are three lessons that I believe Fain and other UAW leaders should draw from Reuther’s legacy:</p>
<p><strong>1: Articulate a clear vision</strong></p>
<p>In 1945, a year before he became the UAW’s longest-serving president, Reuther led <a href="https://www.apnews.com/83b9a7d6f2b04d0da468c97ccf39b095">320,000 GM workers on a 113-day strike</a> that ended with pay raises, overtime compensation and paid vacation days. The way he spelled out the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/26295254">philosophy behind the strike</a> helped inspire the workers’ confidence.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://jamesteneyck.com/walter-reuther/">autoworkers had done their part to win World War II</a>, Reuther later said, they struck for “the right of a worker to share – not as a matter of collective bargaining muscle, but as a matter of right – to share in the fruits of advancing technology.” </p>
<p>Like <a href="https://uaw.org/walter-reuther-quote-collection/">many of Reuther’s poignant comments</a>, those words still resonate today as technology upends the automotive industry.</p>
<p><strong>2: Recognize the limits of what’s within reach</strong></p>
<p>In 1950, following a <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/strikes-lordstown-haymarket-pullman-shirtwaist-uaw-ufw-afl?language_content_entity=en">102-day strike by 95,000 Chrysler workers</a>, Reuther negotiated breakthrough agreements with GM, Ford and Chrysler known collectively as the “<a href="https://jacobin.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-colleges-union-walter-reuther-treaty-detroit/">Treaty of Detroit</a>.” The pacts included big increases in wages, health care benefits and retirement pensions. </p>
<p>But pragmatism tempered Reuther’s determination to achieve all the union’s objectives. He knew when to strike and when to settle. Reuther understood the union’s capacity to hold a strike and how much harm it could inflict upon a company before the costs became prohibitive for both sides.</p>
<p>He used strikes strategically, knew which company to target – and when. Reuther knew to settle when the union’s ability to push a company for further concessions had reached a ceiling beyond which the losses on both sides exceed any possible future gains.</p>
<p>And he realized that worker priorities that could not be won in a current round of bargaining could be pushed to the next. Reuther understood that autoworkers and their employers depended on each other to make progress. </p>
<p><strong>3: Balance competing interests</strong></p>
<p>Reuther also understood the limits of the UAW’s power, and he knew how to bargain for a contract that both autoworkers and automotive executives could accept.</p>
<p>In a speech he made on Labor Day in 1958, <a href="http://reuther100.wayne.edu/pdf/Labor_Day_Address.pdf">Reuther defined
labor’s task</a> as “to cooperate in creating and sharing abundance … [which] requires working out a proper balance between competing equities of workers, stockholders and consumers.”</p>
<h2>New reality</h2>
<p>Reuther’s reign coincided with Detroit’s dominance. <a href="https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/animated-chart-of-the-day-market-shares-of-us-auto-sales-1961-to-2016/">At least 85% of the vehicles U.S. drivers bought</a> through the mid-1960s were made by the Big Three automakers.</p>
<p>Those companies’ total U.S. market share is less than half of that now – a total of about 41%, with <a href="https://investor.gm.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gm-continued-gain-us-market-share-and-extended-its-truck">16% for GM</a>, <a href="https://www.cascade.app/studies/ford-strategy-study">14% for Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.stellantis.com/content/dam/stellantis-corporate/investors/events-and-presentations/presentations/Stellantis_FY_22_Results_Presentation.pdf">11% for Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>Autoworkers also wield less power today than they did back then.</p>
<p>UAW membership has dwindled to fewer than 400,000 members, including the 150,0000 people directly employed by GM, Ford and Stellantis who may soon go on strike. Some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/united-auto-workers-union-raises-dues-first-time-47-years-n121586">1.5 million workers belonged to the union</a> at its 1979 peak. Unions represent <a href="https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/united-auto-workers-union-membership-rose-3-in-2022-to-383000/">only 16% of the workers employed in the U.S. motor vehicle and parts industry</a> in 2022, down from nearly 60% in 1983.</p>
<p>GM, Ford and Stellantis have <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/08/17/ford-salaried-workers-parts-warehouses-depot-uaw-strike-jobs/70601006007/">vowed to resist any demands they deem unreasonable</a>. Both labor and management could incur potentially substantial losses in a strike, which would compound over time. Even a 10-day strike could cause an estimated <a href="https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/10-day-uaw-strike-against-big-three-could-cause-economic-losses-exceeding-5-billion/">US$5 billion in economic damage</a> or more, according to the Anderson Economic Group consulting firm.</p>
<p>I believe that the path to a settlement requires understanding how an avoidable strike would put both sides behind, while their competitors move forward.</p>
<p>And I keep on wondering what Walter Reuther would do – and whether Shawn Fain is doing that too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marick Masters is the director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University. The university has received contributions from the joint training funds from the UAW and the Big Three to support education in labor-management relations. These contributions were used strictly for this purpose.</span></em></p>Reuther was both ambitious and pragmatic, scoring many victories for autoworkers.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100372023-08-07T12:41:03Z2023-08-07T12:41:03ZUS autoworkers may wage a historic strike against Detroit’s 3 biggest automakers − with wages at EV battery plants a key roadblock to agreement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538558/original/file-20230720-19-obsn7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C139%2C2236%2C1850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UAW President Shawn Fain speaks with General Motors workers on July 12, 2023, in Detroit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain-speaks-with-and-news-photo/1528218013?adppopup=true">Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union, which represents nearly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/stellantis-samsung-battery-plant-uaw/index.html">150,000 employees of companies that manufacture U.S.-made vehicles</a>, has been engaged since July 2023 in the labor negotiations it undergoes every four years with the three main unionized automakers.</p>
<p>By late August, it still wasn’t clear that the UAW would agree to a new contract with <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bigthree.asp">Ford, General Motors and Stellantis</a> – the automaker that manufactures Chrysler and 13 other vehicle brands – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-will-open-contract-talks-with-detroit-three-automakers-2023-07-10/">by their impending deadline</a>. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-workers-union-wage-increase-jobs-bank-b8370b11bd692191d9ee3080001ef358">contracts expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14</a>.</p>
<p>The union’s leaders skipped the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/07/13/uaw-detroit-three-handshake-tradition-shawn-fain/70407842007/">traditional handshake ceremonies</a> it usually holds with these automakers, which are often called the Big Three or Detroit Three. The union instead held grassroots photo-ops: UAW leaders greeted rank-and-file members at one Ford, one GM and one Stellantis factory. On Aug. 25, the UAW announced that <a href="https://uaw.org/97-uaws-big-three-members-vote-yes-authorize-strike/">97% of its members had authorized a strike</a> “if the Big Three refuse to reach a fair deal.” It’s a major milestone.</p>
<p>I’m a labor scholar who has studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=marick+masters&btnG">history of UAW collective bargaining with the Detroit Three</a>. Given that the UAW is <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">making major demands</a> at a time of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/strikes-2023-summer-unions/">rising union assertiveness and ambition</a>, I believe it’s reasonable to wonder whether U.S. automakers will be the next industry to face a strike.</p>
<p>In 2023, there have been <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/emmys-postponed-due-writer-actor-strikes-rcna96803">strikes by screenwriters, actors</a>, <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/us-healthcare-workers-walk-off-the-job-7-strikes-in-2023.html">health care workers</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-los-angeles-hotel-strike-ff26bbef8cbf37c82469a446ff29f919">hotel staff</a>, as well as vigorous organizing by workers for <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/reform-caucus-rises-sues-elections-amazon-labor-union">warehouse and delivery services</a> at <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/amazon-teamsters-rolling-pickets-hit-facilities-nationwide">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ups-and-teamsters-agree-on-new-contract-averting-costly-strike-that-could-have-delayed-deliveries-for-consumers-and-retailers-210431">UPS</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/business/fedex-pilots-union-vote/index.html">FedEx</a>.</p>
<h2>Strike could stall Detroit GM, Ford and Stellantis</h2>
<p>All three automakers with expiring contracts have amassed nearly <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">US$250 billion in reported profits</a> in their North American operations over the past decade.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://uaw.org/new-uaw-video-highlights-big-3s-massive-profits-makes-clear-can-easily-afford-unions-contract-demands/">UAW leaders have pledged</a> to garner what they see as their members’ fair share of those profits through higher wages and stronger job security.</p>
<p>The UAW’s newly elected president, Shawn Fain, frequently denounces corporate greed and has proclaimed the union’s willingness to go on strike. In the past, the union has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/automobiles/auto-strikes-history.html">held strikes against one automaker at a time</a>, most recently in <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/25/20930350/gm-workers-vote-end-strike">2019 against GM</a>. </p>
<p>That could change this time.</p>
<p>“The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-president-says-union-prepared-strike-detroit-three-2023-07-11/">Big Three is our strike target</a>,” Fain has said. “And whether or not there’s a strike, it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.” </p>
<p>The UAW has said it has <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2023/06/21/bank-of-america-analysts-expect-uaw-strike-during-auto-talks-this-year/70343417007/">more than $825 million</a> in its strike fund to <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">help workers make do</a> without pay should they walk off the job. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man carries a 'UAW on strike' picket sign, enveloped in an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540915/original/file-20230802-15-h9ccgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Autoworker Ray Dota picketed outside the shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Sept. 23, 2019, during the most recent UAW strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ray-dota-of-austintown-oh-pickets-outside-the-shuttered-news-photo/1178903811?adppopup=true">Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fain’s leadership</h2>
<p>Fain has declared that the union will no longer maintain the somewhat cozy relationship with the Big Three that <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">led to major concessions</a> in the past.</p>
<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">union’s other new leaders also</a> are affiliated with the UAW’s <a href="https://uawd.org/about/">Unite All Workers for Democracy</a> caucus, which launched a successful campaign to require the direct election of the union’s top officials in 2022, with runoff elections held in 2023. They want to prevent a recurrence of a massive scandal that resulted in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-uaw-official-sentenced-57-months-prison-embezzling-over-2-million-union-funds">federal prosecution</a> of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/former-international-uaw-president-gary-jones-sentenced-prison-embezzling-union-funds">UAW leaders from 2017 to 2022</a>.</p>
<p>Two former UAW international presidents were sentenced to time in prison after being convicted of embezzling union funds. The new slate of leaders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167902956/united-auto-workers-president-shawn-fain">assumed control of the UAW under court supervision</a> in March 2023.</p>
<h2>Seeking equal pay for EV workers</h2>
<p>As part of their bolder strategy, the <a href="https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/gm-samsung-sdi-build-3b-ev-battery-plant-us">UAW’s new leaders have criticized the joint ventures</a> between the three automakers and foreign-based electric battery producers.</p>
<p>They want to see Ford, GM and Stellantis paying UAW-level wages and benefits at all joint-venture operated plants in the U.S. making batteries for their EVs. Today, workers at the joint-venture factories earn far less than their <a href="https://electrek.co/2023/06/23/car-wars-ford-gm-stellantis-gain-most-us-ev-market-share/">counterparts who produce vehicles that run on fossil fuels</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electrek.co/2022/12/09/gms-ultium-battery-plant-votes-overwhelmingly-to-unionize-with-uaw/">UAW has succeeded in organizing one of these joint ventures</a>, Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio. But pay for workers at the former General Motors plant, which is now a joint EV battery venture between GM and LG Energy, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/auto-union-harshly-criticizes-us-ford-joint-venture-battery-loan-2023-06-23/">starts at just $16.50 per hour</a>. In 2019, the year that GM ended car assembly at that factory, workers <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/28/auto-workers-union-and-sanders-blast-gm-for-wages-at-us-battery-plant.html">earned $32 per hour</a>. </p>
<p>The UAW has several other objectives, which <a href="https://uaw.org/president-fain-facebook-live-big-threes-record-profits-mean-record-contracts">Fain first announced in a Facebook live meeting</a> on Aug. 1, 2023.</p>
<p>They include greater job security <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-seeks-double-digit-pay-hikes-detroit-three-contract-talks-2023-08-01/">and steep wage increases</a> for UAW-represented workers covered by the union’s contracts with GM, Ford and Stellantis.</p>
<p>Among other things, it also seeks to end the two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007, under which new hires make much less than veteran workers, and the restoration of cost-of-living allowances, which the UAW also conceded in 2007 to help the companies stay afloat during the Great Recession.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc12.com/news/business/uaw-president-lays-out-list-of-demands-for-big-three-automakers/article_3e76b288-3130-11ee-861e-2365c42aa592.html">Other UAW goals include</a> resuming company-paid retiree health care benefits, adding more paid time off and limiting the use of temporary employees. Fain also says he wants <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_4x-seTCvc&ab_channel=CBSNews">workweeks scaled down to 32 hours, from its current 40</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1686494700331728906"}"></div></p>
<h2>Smaller ranks</h2>
<p>Union membership in the auto manufacturing industry has <a href="https://www.unionstats.com">shrunk from nearly 60% in 1983 to under 16% in 2022</a>. Nonunion competitors with U.S. locations include foreign companies such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, as well as domestic-based EV rivals Tesla and Rivian.</p>
<p>In 1970, GM employed more than 400,000 workers. In 2001, the Big Three combined employed 408,000. Today, a total of only 146,000 people work for those companies – <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/uaw-show-list-economic-demands-automakers-week-seek-101925455">57,000 at Ford, 46,000 at GM and 43,OOO at Stellantis</a>. </p>
<p>The Big Three’s share of the U.S. automotive market has <a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20090601/OEM/306019739/detroit-3-domestic-brands-u-s-market-share-history">declined to about 40% from more than 90%</a> in <a href="https://datacenter.autonews.com/data-center/market-reports">the mid-1960s</a>.</p>
<p>But the UAW’s negotiations also directly affect the economic livelihood of the millions who work for the Big Three’s suppliers and in communities dependent on the <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/posts/press-release/new-data-on-economic-impact">$1 trillion the auto industry contributes to the U.S. economy</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, many union and nonunion employers monitor the wages and benefits of UAW-represented workforces as they set compensation for their own employees. When union members get raises and better benefits, many employers of nonunion autoworkers mirror those changes – <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-and-well-being/">raising pay too</a>. </p>
<p>The shift to electric vehicles poses several related challenges to the UAW.</p>
<p>First, it requires less labor than producing vehicles that burn fossil fuels, which means <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2658797703">EV manufacturing generates fewer jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Second, autoworkers employed at joint-venture EV-battery factories have to be organized by the UAW on a case-by-case basis. That can prove especially difficult at plants located in such states as Kentucky, Tennessee or Georgia – where unions have <a href="https://www.unionstats.com/">lower membership rates</a>.</p>
<p>Third, <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-tsla-median-earnings-81-percent-us-average">nonunion electric vehicle companies like Tesla</a> and <a href="https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2022-12-16/why-the-uaw-is-so-hungry-for-a-unionization-win-at-rivian">Rivian generally pay their production workers less</a> than the Detroit Three.</p>
<h2>What the automakers say</h2>
<p>Ford, GM and Stellantis have noted that they have invested heavily in U.S.-based factories to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007">preserve UAW-represented jobs</a>. Also, the Big Three point out that they have shared their North American profits in sizable annual payments to their workers.</p>
<p>In 2022, for example, the Detroit Three combined made profit-sharing payments that averaged <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/02/02/ford-uaw-hourly-workers-2022-profit-sharing/69865970007/">$36,686 per worker</a>. In addition, the companies pay higher wages and provide more benefits to U.S. autoworkers than foreign automakers, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/business/uaw-contract-talks.html">Toyota and Honda, or domestic EV producers</a>.</p>
<p>Ford CEO Jim Farley and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/07/12/gm-reuss-uaw-contract-talks-detroit-automakers/70401953007/">GM President Mark Ruess have published op-eds</a> in the Detroit Free Press praising their workers and expressing their commitments to do right by them.</p>
<p>“We share common goals” with the UAW, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/06/29/ford-jim-farley-uaw-contract-bargaining/70361242007/">Farley wrote in late June</a>. Both sides want to reach “a new deal that allows us to stay ahead of the changing industry landscape, protecting good-paying jobs in the U.S.”</p>
<p>But both executives have emphasized their need to be competitive.</p>
<p>After seeing the UAW’s demands, GM criticized their “breadth and scope” and said they “would threaten our ability to do what’s right for the long-term benefit of the team.” The <a href="https://www.gmnegotiations2023.com/public/us/en/negotiations/home/negotiation-updates.html">automaker also reiterated</a> its openness to what it called a “fair agreement” and to raise wages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A very modern-looking concept-car truck beneath the Ram automotive brand name." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540913/original/file-20230802-29-bfgvep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stellantis’ Ram 1500 Revolution battery-electric concept pickup truck was on display in January 2023 at a trade show in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stellantis-ram-1500-revolution-battery-electric-concept-news-photo/1454496551?adppopup=true">Ethan Miller/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What may happen during a UAW strike</h2>
<p>Halting production for even one big automaker during a strike would directly harm thousands of workers and cost the company money in terms of lost sales and production. Strikers would lose out on wages that would only be partially offset by the union’s <a href="https://uaw.org/strike-faq-2/">striker benefits of $500 per week</a>. </p>
<p>And any strike could further disrupt supply chains that have not fully recovered from the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters that have sharply <a href="https://www.cargroup.org/auto-supply-chain-update/">curtailed vehicle production</a> since 2020.</p>
<p>Financial losses can be immense for automotive companies when their workers walk off the job. The 40-day <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">strike in 2019 cost GM a reported $3.6 billion</a>. </p>
<p>A weekslong strike would also jeopardize the UAW’s struggle to rebuild its image <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/07/01/uaw-strike-fund-benefits-scandal/5353128002/">following a string of corruption scandals</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that it’s up to both the corporate and labor leaders involved to avoid what could turn out to be a costly miscalculation.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Aug. 25, 2023, to report the strike vote.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As Director of Labor@Wayne at Wayne State University, Marick Masters received funding from the joint training centers operated by the UAW with Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler. Representatives of these organizations served on the external advisory board of <a href="mailto:Labor@Wayne">Labor@Wayne</a>. All money was channeled through Wayne State University for educational purposes.</span></em></p>A strike would shake up the auto industry, even though both the union’s ranks and the share of the US automotive market controlled by GM, Ford and Stellantis have been shrinking for decades.Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239452019-09-23T11:33:14Z2019-09-23T11:33:14ZWhy the United Auto Workers GM strike is headed for failure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293446/original/file-20190921-135122-qihsw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GM autoworkers went on strike on Sept. 15.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/Search?query=general+motors+strike&ss=10&st=kw&entitysearch=&toItem=18&orderBy=Newest&searchMediaType=allmedia">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Auto Workers union has a long history of successful <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/industrials/history-gm-strike-uaw-auto-workers">strikes against General Motors</a>. </p>
<p>The most famous example is the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1086/682956">1936 to 1937 Flint strike</a> that resulted in higher wages and the union being recognized for the first time as the sole collective bargaining representative of workers by GM. For the next 15 years, UAW strikes were relatively common and extremely successful, culminating in the <a href="https://seekingmichigan.org/look/2011/08/23/treaty-of-detroit">Treaty of Detroit in 1950</a>, which shaped management-labor relations for decades. Even today, worker strikes in most industries are still generally considered an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/31/its-time-to-acknowledge-that-strikes-work">effective tactic</a>.</p>
<p>So when UAW on Sept. 15 began <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-gm-uaw-strike-two-combatants-with-something-to-prove-11568937301">its first nationwide strike</a> against GM in more than a decade – for, among other things, higher wages and an end to its <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-usa-families/for-uaw-members-two-tier-wage-issue-is-personal-idUSKBN0OI0C420150602">two-tiered salary system</a> – you might think workers stood a reasonable chance to win the concessions they sought. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0KmQgfIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">My research into the history</a> of the U.S. auto industry, however, suggests that the strike is likely doomed to fail. </p>
<h2>Why past strikes succeeded</h2>
<p>In “<a href="http://www.russellsage.org/publications/wrecked">Wrecked: How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete</a>,” sociologist Michael Schwartz and I looked at the history of labor relations and production systems in the U.S. and Japanese auto industry to better understand the decline of the “Big Three” automakers – General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.</p>
<p>In the process of our research we also gained an understanding of what makes an auto strike successful. Essentially, for a strike to achieve its aims, workers need sufficient leverage over production to be able to disrupt normal functioning for long enough that it would be cheaper for the company to offer the concessions. Put another way, workers have to cause the automaker enough pain to make it cry uncle. </p>
<p>The longer and more disruptive a strike is, the larger the concessions. Higher levels of what we call structural leverage mean that a relatively small number of workers can cause maximal disruption. </p>
<p>During the first half of the 20th century, General Motors produced cars using a just-in-time delivery system called “flexible production.” The automaker carried no stockpiles of inventory; it ordered vehicle components as it needed them. It also clustered its suppliers – which were often the sole source of key parts – around its American plants, <a href="https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/3/">where virtually all of its cars were built at the time</a>. </p>
<p>This made it easy for striking workers to cause the disruption they needed to extract major concessions from GM. For example, the Flint strike in 1936 and 1937 resulted in the closure of key plants, which <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1086/682956">shut down 75% of GM’s production</a>. </p>
<p>This high level of structural leverage helped UAW strikes to be consistently successful, whether they were national strikes or small <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096206?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">wildcat strikes</a> conducted by workers against the will of leadership.</p>
<h2>Losing leverage</h2>
<p>Things look different today. </p>
<p>GM and other U.S. auto companies abandoned flexible production during the 1950s and ‘60s to weaken labor’s leverage, as we learned in our research. Today GM carries <a href="https://www.autonews.com/sales/automakers-inventory-high-uaw-walks-job">large stockpiles of inventory</a>, and its suppliers and assembly plants are located all over the world. Just 28% of its workforce is in the U.S., and its cars <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/industrials/ford-gm-dont-make-the-most-american-made-car-heres-who-does">don’t rank high</a> on an index measuring how much of a car is made in the United States. </p>
<p>The result of the current production structure is that while a national strike shuts down U.S. production, that is only a minor part of GM’s total capacity.</p>
<p>Further, the strike’s expected costs to GM are a drop in its bucket. Some analysts are estimating that the strike will cost <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-no-vehicles-being-made-uaw-strike-could-cost-gm-100-million-a-day-11568653935">GM US$50 million to $100 million</a> per day. Even if the strike lasts a month, that’s a tiny fraction of GM’s <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/gm/financials">$147 billion in 2018 sales</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, union leadership hampered the strike’s effectiveness before it even began by publicly announcing their plan. This gave GM extra time to prepare by <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2019/09/13/general-motors-supply-uaw-strike/2276885001/">stocking up on inventory</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say that it’s impossible for auto workers to launch a successful strike in today’s environment. It’s just that it’ll take a lot longer. And this matters because striking workers suffer during strikes. Their pay goes from <a href="https://work.chron.com/average-pay-auto-workers-union-member-24071.html">$16 to $38 per hour</a> to about <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/16/gm-uaw-workers-strike-pay/2342075001/">$1.25 per hour</a>, which they get out of the union’s strike fund. </p>
<p>While it’s not impossible that workers will wait out GM and win major concessions, but given the structure they are operating in, it is unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Murray receives funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. </span></em></p>The odds are stacked against the striking workers at General Motors. A sociologist who’s studied the decline of the US auto industry explains why.Joshua Murray, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827422017-08-23T02:03:39Z2017-08-23T02:03:39ZUAW’s loss at Nissan auto plant masks genuine progress for organized labor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183017/original/file-20170822-30547-wqzpxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 5,000-strong pro-union march in March suggested labor support in Canton is growing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A spirited, decade-long effort by workers to organize a union at the sprawling Nissan assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, seemed to drive into a ditch on August 5, when officials finally tallied the election ballots.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nissanourfuture.com/nissan-employees-elect-to-self-represent-in-nearly-2-to-1-margin/">margin looked definitive</a>: 1,307 workers voted to have the United Auto Workers represent them, while 2,244 voted against.</p>
<p>It was a dismal and disappointing result for organized labor that would seem to conform to the half-century slide in its ranks and impact on the U.S. economy. At first glance, the outcome threatens to further solidify a standard of falling wages, more temporary workers and fewer workplace rights from Long Beach to Long Island. </p>
<p>But the story doesn’t end there. Behind this loss there’s a glimmer of hope for labor. Decades of research on labor and globalization, particularly in manufacturing and the auto industry, lead me to believe that while the pro-union workers may have suffered a setback, the campaign is far from over. In fact, there are signs that the UAW’s organizing effort has made some lasting inroads that could lead to success down the road. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183026/original/file-20170822-21526-1ctcy2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UAW members and their volunteers stood outside an entrance to the Nissan vehicle assembly plant in Canton as voting was set to begin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What happened in Canton</h2>
<p>Nissan, a <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nissan-profit-up-27-as-sales-incentives-rise-2017-05-11">highly successful Japanese automaker</a>, operates with unions at <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-bc-us--nissan-union-20170803-story.html">all its auto assembly plants worldwide</a> except the two in the United States (the company has <a href="https://www.nissanusa.com/about/corporate-info">two other U.S. factories</a> that assemble powertrains). </p>
<p>Nissan workers at the Canton car factory – which makes up to 450,000 Altimas, Frontiers, Armadas and other cars and vans a year – <a href="http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/2017/07/28/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">began to organize</a> soon after it opened in 2003. </p>
<p>As the Canton effort gained momentum, workers and UAW organizers built a <a href="http://www.beneaththeshine.org/docs/MAFFAN-Background.pdf">social movement</a> in the plant and in the broader community. Churches, community groups, civil rights organizations and political leaders all became involved. The workforce, overwhelmingly African-American, defined <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/05/mississippi-nissan-workers-vote-against-union">their struggle</a> in terms of civil rights.</p>
<p>That’s because workers felt their right to join a union and bargain collectively was being <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/bp181/">violated</a>. Those rights were enshrined in the <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/who-we-are/our-history/1935-passage-wagner-act">1935 National Labor Relations Act</a>, also known as the Wagner Act or often described as labor’s Magna Carta.</p>
<p>The act created the National Labor Relations Board, which <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76xke7xd9780252030048.html">initially told companies to remain neutral</a> when workers are considering forming a union because, as Alexander Hamilton <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed79.asp">warned</a> a century and a half earlier, employers have an inherent power over their employees: “a power over a man’s support is a power over his will.” The National Labor Relations Board, particularly in its early days, deemed a company’s anti-union statements equivalent to unfair labor practices, according to <a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76xke7xd9780252030048.html">historian David Brody</a>.</p>
<p>But workers say Nissan took a strong anti-union approach and mounted a no-holds-barred <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/business/nissan-united-auto-workers-union-mississippi.html">campaign of fear</a>. Some of the tactics included mandatory group meetings, one-on-one supervisory interrogations, surveillance of union activity and nonstop videos featuring top plant managers predicting dire consequences if the union succeeded. </p>
<p>Phil Bryant, the governor of Mississippi, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-to-works-rapid-spread-is-creating-more-union-free-riders-38805">right-to-work</a> state, also <a href="http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/2017/07/28/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">weighed in ominously to reporters on the eve of the vote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board <a href="https://uaw.org/app/uploads/2017/07/Nissan-4th-Amended-Complaint.pdf">issued a complaint</a> in July that accused Nissan of threatening to terminate employees involved in the unionizing effort and to close down their plant if their organizing drive succeeded – both illegal acts under Wagner. </p>
<p>Clearly, the workforce was divided. Many workers were nervous about challenging the status quo because they were earning more at Nissan than they would have at other jobs in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/the-10-states-and-10-jobs-with-the-most-low-wage-workers/256553/">low-wage Mississippi</a>. Others simply didn’t want a union or believed the company’s scare tactics suggesting unionization would lead to terrible results. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183084/original/file-20170823-13319-ki3sf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant claimed a pro-union vote at Nissan would lead to job losses in the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unions and wage growth</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122411414817">mountain of scholarship</a>, however, concludes strong unions historically have contributed to higher wages and a growing middle class – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">even for workers who aren’t unionized</a>. </p>
<p>Unions paved the way to the middle class after World War II by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-price-of-inequality-by-joseph-e-stiglitz.html">linking rapidly rising productivity</a> to growing wages and benefits. </p>
<p>When unions are dismantled, such wage gains unravel, and so does the middle class. That’s what we’ve seen for the past 50 years. The <a href="http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/the-challenging-and-continuing-slide-in-u-s-unionization-rates/">sharp union decline</a> since the late 1970s triggered “substantial wage losses among workers who do not belong to a union,” according to a <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">2016 Economic Policy Institute study</a>. Western and Rosenfeld found that the decline of labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality. </p>
<p>Economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that despite the U.S. economy almost doubling in size since 1986, <a href="http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2017.pdf">almost all the gains flowed</a> to the upper reaches of the income distribution, primarily the top 1 percent. The authors blamed “weakened unions” as one of the reasons the bottom half of wage earners – 117 million Americans – were largely left behind. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183083/original/file-20170823-13299-qduiho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vehicles are suspended above other installation stations as they are moved along the assembly line at the Nissan Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reason for optimism</h2>
<p>Although the final vote at the Nissan plant was lopsided, it also offers a degree of hope to those who’d like to see the resurgence of organized labor. </p>
<p>The result, which saw 38 percent vote for the UAW, was in fact the union’s best result by far out of three efforts to unionize Nissan plants in the U.S. The UAW <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2017/07/20/uaw-nissan-battle-mississippi-factory-union-representation-representation/103877590/">tried and failed</a> twice before, both times at its car factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1989 and 2001, earning about 30 percent support.</p>
<p>An additional caveat to the seemingly anti-union outcome is that auto plants like Nissan’s are increasingly being run by temporary workers. In Canton’s case, 2,700 out of 6,500 are temporary, hired through an outside contractor and <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2017/08/04/nissan-uaw-election-canton-mississippi/104308020/">paid a starting rate</a> of US$13 an hour – about half what a full-time employee earns for the same work.</p>
<p>Union support ran high among these temps, but they were prohibited from voting. What this shows is that, despite the loss at the ballot box, the unionization drive has galvanized much of the community and created a social movement in Canton. In addition, protests during the campaign led Nissan to promise to adopt some changes that would benefit these temp workers. Failure to meet these promises would also aid pro-union forces. </p>
<p>The loss was a disappointment to be sure. The contemporary labor movement, however, emerged <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/unions/">against similar seemingly impossible odds</a> in the midst of the Great Depression. The pro-union Nissan workers, like their peers from the 1930s, have built a social movement on the shop floor and in the community around their cause and have reached what I’d consider a critical mass of support. </p>
<p>On the eve of the election, the UAW filed seven new complaints with the NLRB, which could grant them a new election in six months based on the alleged violations of the Wagner Act. Whatever happens with these complaints, neither these workers nor the UAW are going away. </p>
<p>Union supporters suffered a sharp setback, but it may not be the end of the story, for the Canton workers or the national labor movement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harley Shaiken is a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Center for American Progress and I am on the Advisory Board of Jobs With Justice</span></em></p>Although workers at a Nissan auto plant in Mississippi rejected a proposal to join the United Auto Workers Union, organized labor has reason to be optimistic about its future.Harley Shaiken, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Letters and Science, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606892016-08-08T00:11:34Z2016-08-08T00:11:34ZHow labor’s decline opened door to billionaire Trump as ‘savior’ of American workers<p>Out of the economic maelstrom of the last decade, Donald Trump has emerged as the improbable, and self-proclaimed, champion of American workers. </p>
<p>And that’s despite the fact that Trump has failed to articulate substantive policy positions regarding <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/labor-power">labor issues</a>, other than generic railing against foreign competition and bad trade deals. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, for one, <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Just-Remember-How-Donald-Trump-Treats-Working-People">has attacked him</a> by tweeting a number of examples in which Trump’s past behavior shows that he is no friend to working people. </p>
<p></p><blockquote><p>Everything Trump says shows he is desperate to be working ppl’s friend but everything he does proves he is our enemy <a href="https://t.co/3AXVBV3jpm">https://t.co/3AXVBV3jpm</a></p>— Richard L. Trumka (@RichardTrumka) <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardTrumka/status/755486423743078400">19 July 2016</a></blockquote> <p></p>
<p>The important question is how has Trump – a wealthy real estate mogul and reality TV star – managed to <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/new-data-why-white-working-class-voters-back-trump-475447">attract substantial support</a> among white men without college degrees, a demographic that makes up the base of industrial unionism? </p>
<p>The answer is an interlocking set of changing economic and cultural conditions in the U.S. that has undermined middle-class incomes and values. And it starts with the steady erosion of the American labor movement. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A4410C">recent book</a> on labor decline, I explored the historical evolution of the movement and concluded that state right-to-work laws are instrumental in breaking down working-class solidarity. Paradoxically, it is in these states that Trump’s support is strongest. </p>
<h2>The decline of unionism</h2>
<p>In 1950, Walter Reuther and the United Auto Workers <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/08/business/uaw-auto-union-timeline.html">negotiated</a> a landmark labor contract with General Motors known as the “Treaty of Detroit,” which set the terms for working-class prosperity over the next three decades. According to a <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=984330">study</a> by economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin, the golden age of the American working class depended on a set of institutional supports that included collective bargaining and union power. </p>
<p>Deteriorating economic conditions and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">membership declines</a> in the late ‘70’s led organized labor to mount a pivotal effort for labor law reform to reinvigorate the movement, but a proposed bill <a href="http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal78-1238478">was defeated</a> by a Republican filibuster in 1978. Subsequently, union membership fell at a faster rate than at any time since the 1920s and <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">presently stands</a> at 11.1 percent of workers. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/inequality-can-be-addressed-only-if-we-start-talking-about-the-working-class-44442">effect of union deterioration</a> on income inequality <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-and-the-rise-of-the-top-10-percents-share-of-income/">is nicely illustrated</a> by the relationship between membership and the income share of the top 10 percent. In 1956, membership in unions was 33.2 percent, which was slightly higher than the share of national income taken in by top earners. In 2013, the figures were 11.2 percent and 47 percent, respectively. </p>
<h2>The role of culture</h2>
<p>Coupled with stagnant wages, changing social conditions have inflamed the cultural divide among identity groups. A psychological theory known as “<a href="http://www.culturalcognition.net/">cultural cognition</a>” argues that Americans fall primarily into two ideological camps that shape their responses to such divisive issues as guns, race, gender and public toilets. </p>
<p>“Hierarchical individualists” adhere to traditional social roles, such as marriage between a man and a woman, freedom from government interference with personal liberties belonging to citizens of our nation, and regard for institutions such as the church and the military. This type of person holds deep religious views and respects authority arising from legitimate sources. Trump identifies himself as a billionaire who succeeded through his own talent and who states his views without regard for “political correctness.” </p>
<p>The contrasting cultural position is “collective egalitarianism,” which values group action to achieve equality of opportunity, opposes race and gender discrimination, and rejects the dead weight of the historical past. This person advocates economic policies to reduce inequality, such as by increasing the minimum wage and eliminating unfair labor practices. <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/income-and-wealth-inequality/">Bernie Sanders’ economic platform</a> embodies these ideals.</p>
<p>The key point of the theory is that culture takes precedence over rational thought. One study, for example, shows that white males perceive risk much differently than other groups when it challenges their cultural identities and orientation. The <a href="http://www.culturalcognition.net/browse-papers/culture-and-identity-protective-cognition-explaining-the-whi.html">authors conclude</a> that “the white male effect might derive from a congeniality between hierarchical and individualistic worldviews, on the one hand, and a posture of extreme risk skepticism, on the other.” </p>
<p>Consequently, Trump’s base has less apprehension about the risks of his presidency, such as his lack of experience in foreign affairs and his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/07/humayun-khan-donald-trump-military-arlington-national-cemetery">disastrous imbroglio with the Khan family</a>, than do other social groups; and they remain positive about his candidacy because of who they are, not who he is. </p>
<h2>Trump’s heartland</h2>
<p>The two largest cohorts of union membership are aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64. </p>
<p>Overall, there are 6.3 million white male union members compared with slightly more than one million black male members. <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/290395-trumps-path-to-victory-depends-on-surge-of-white-men">Analysts predict</a> that Trump will need to win around 67 percent of the white vote to prevail in the election. </p>
<p>What political strategy would enable Trump to capture key industrial states like Pennsylvania and Ohio? Charles Blow, a New York Times columnist, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/trump-reflects-white-male-fragility.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article">argues</a> that Trump’s appeal is based on racism, writing that “Trump is an unfiltered primal scream of the fragility and fear consuming white male America.” From this perspective, Trump’s best campaign strategy is further attacks on such groups as Muslims and Mexicans. </p>
<p>Thomas Frank, another well-known political commentator, disagrees. He quotes a labor union official in Indiana who points out that working-class Americans are probably no more racist that any other group. Rather, Trump’s appeal to the white male without a college degree is better understood by simple economics. As Frank <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support">explains</a>: “Ill-considered trade deals and generous bank bailouts and guaranteed profits for insurance companies but no recovery for average people, ever – these policies have taken their toll.” </p>
<p>In the end, both approaches are needed to grasp the Trump phenomenon and the possibility that he might become president because his political rise is a conflation of historical circumstance and cultural gridlock.</p>
<p>In other words, Trump achieved a Republican primary victory at the moment when unions no longer could offer economic security for middle-class workers and when dominance based on race and gender was rapidly disappearing. </p>
<h2>Back to the future</h2>
<p>Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” appears to offer a restoration of power to his supporters, but that restoration will not be achieved through positive labor law policies and union growth as took place during the New Deal.</p>
<p>For unions, it is unlikely that Trump would promote statutory changes to make organizing easier and more efficient because <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-misleading-arguments-propelling-right-to-work-laws-38265">Republicans have systematically sought to destroy</a> unions by adopting right to work legislation in states like Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia, and repealing state laws that protect public sector labor organizing. </p>
<p>Realistically, <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions">Trump’s campaign is devoid</a> of any substantive policy proposals to improve wages and benefits for American workers. Trump succeeds not as a legitimate political candidate but as a “cultural symbolist” who relies on emotionally charged tropes to attract followers, such as walling off our border with Mexico and banning Muslims from entering the country. </p>
<p>His approach for the most part has been successful and may be so in the future. A New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/the-perils-of-writing-off-mr-trump.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region">editorial warned</a> against dismissing Trump with the comment, “He is speaking to people who disbelieve conventional politicians, who detest a Washington they think has betrayed them. He promises nothing of substance to ease their pain, but he gives voice to their rage.” </p>
<p>Responding to the “voices of rage” is hardly a worthwhile agenda for national prosperity or security, but it could be enough to win an election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Hogler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump has emerged as a self-proclaimed hero of the working class, yet his policies and pedigree suggest he’s anything but.Raymond Hogler, Professor of Management, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/491602015-11-06T11:04:29Z2015-11-06T11:04:29ZLabor’s rank and file still believe in collective bargaining’s power to bolster middle class<p>When members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2015/10/22/uaw-confirms-ratification-fiat-chrysler-contract/74385746/">approved</a> a new contract with Fiat Chrysler on October 22, they ended a contentious round of negotiations that exposed rank-and-file discontent over a two-tier wage system that one worker described as “at odds with union principles.”</p>
<p>In a rare move just a few weeks earlier, Fiat Chrysler’s 36,000 workers <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/business/uaw-members-are-said-to-reject-fiat-chrysler-contract.html">had rejected</a> an agreement proposed by their leaders, protesting that it failed to close a pay gap that kept newer employees lagging behind the earnings of their more senior counterparts. </p>
<p>Ultimately, a renegotiated contract – which was promoted by UAW leadership with messaging assistance from a public relations firm – contained provisions that appear to have assuaged rank-and-file concerns by decreasing the time it takes for less senior workers to move up the pay scale.</p>
<p>This episode represented one of the few occasions in recent memory when negotiations between unions and a major corporation have attracted sustained public attention. </p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/economy/uaw-contract-vote-at-fiat-chrysler-takes-a-populist-tone.html">characterized</a> the workers’ initial repudiation of the contract proposed by their representatives as further evidence of deepening populist discontent directed against established institutions and mainstream politicians, in this case leaders of their bargaining team. Similar qualms also appeared to have surfaced during the ratification process <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2015/11/05/crucial-vote-moves-uaw-gm-pact-closer-ratification/75207972/">currently underway</a> for a new contract between General Motors and the UAW.</p>
<p>In addition to this increasing popular tendency to question authority, the Fiat Chrysler negotiations raise important questions about the status of collective bargaining at a time when the inequality of bargaining power between workers and employers has reached epic proportions. The workers’ reaction suggests the continuing relevance of collective bargaining as a social practice and the need to consider how it might attain renewed vitality and legitimacy in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Importantly, how did collective bargaining shift from negotiating over new protections and benefits to fighting over what gets cut? And what has this shift this meant for the middle class unions built?</p>
<p>The UAW workers’ initial rejection of the Fiat Chrysler deal underscore the continuing perception among workers that collective bargaining remains a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">key ingredient</a> for creating a vibrant middle class. </p>
<h2>Glory days</h2>
<p>During collective bargaining’s glory days in the three decades following World War II, UAW leader Walter Reuther <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Y97uNsn4scQC&pg=PA578&lpg=PA578&dq=whole+new+middle+class+Walter+Reuther&source=bl&ots=FvAdmGXMcp&sig=I6SAKGYXajM6sEtJDdlBR-uGTt4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI566elZz1yAIVi1Q-Ch0Chwd9#v=onepage&q=whole%20new%20middle%20class%20Walter%20Reuther&f=false">observed</a> that it had helped to create a “whole new middle class.” </p>
<p>Buoyed by national and regional agreements covering thousands of workers, unions <a href="http://research.library.gsu.edu/c.php?g=115684&p=752252">successfully negotiated</a> steady wage increases, employer paid health insurance and pensions that brought greater security to workers haunted by the devastation of the Great Depression. The impact of this bargaining extended beyond union ranks, as a segment of nonunion employers followed suit in an effort to assuage their employees and inhibit union growth. </p>
<p>Indeed, wage and productivity gains aligned closely from the end of World War II well into the 1970s, and income and wealth inequality <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1514.pdf">narrowed</a>, making entry into the middle class more possible for both workers and their families. The subsequent extension of collective bargaining into the public sector boosted working conditions and living standards for government employees and made upward mobility accessible to an even wider range of workers.</p>
<h2>‘Concession bargaining’</h2>
<p>Collective bargaining’s glory days, however, were short-lived. </p>
<p>President Ronald Reagan’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html">crushing</a> of the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981 helped introduce a new lexicon to the world of labor negotiations. Where bargaining had previously produced consistent gains for workers, employers now felt empowered to seek “givebacks,” insist on two-tier wage systems and pursue an overall approach that came to be known as “concession bargaining.” </p>
<p>Increasingly, unions began to regard bargaining as “successful” if they were merely able to resist major concessions and retain previous gains, especially in the besieged private sector. Although collective bargaining still served a valuable social function, its ability to empower workers, boost living standards and extend vital protections became more limited.</p>
<p>As private sector bargaining lost its luster, workers in the public sector also came under fire. Efforts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-misleading-arguments-propelling-right-to-work-laws-38265">curtail</a> public sector bargaining have mushroomed at the state level, with legislatures in Wisconsin and Michigan restricting public sector bargaining and other states contemplating similar action. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/30/politics/supreme-court-teacher-public-union-dues/">will soon rule</a> on a case that could sharply reduce the resources needed by public sector unions to bargain effectively on their members’ behalf. </p>
<h2>A profound shift</h2>
<p>The implications of these developments are profound. </p>
<p>Although current levels of income and wealth inequality and wage stagnation stem from multiple sources, many observers cite the decline of collective bargaining as one influential factor. The diminished social and economic role of collective bargaining also manifests itself in more subtle ways. </p>
<p>During its post-World War II heyday, collective bargaining became a familiar social practice. On visible public stages we’d witness the choreographed handshakes between labor and management at opening sessions, regular updates to the press on bargaining progress, the potential or reality of strikes and the approval of final agreements. All of this depicted workers dealing with their employees on a equal footing and exercising power to shape not only their workplace lives but also the direction of the nation’s economy. </p>
<p>Rejections of proposed contracts and periodic strikes reminded the public that collective bargaining allowed workers democratic participation in shaping the outcomes of negotiations. </p>
<p>Bargaining also illustrated how parties with differing interests could resolve conflict, a capability sorely lacking in the hyper-partisanship that now dominates our political culture. These images underscored the prominent place and social legitimacy that collective bargaining once occupied in American public life.</p>
<h2>Its power remains</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, collective bargaining still has the capacity to play a significant social role. </p>
<p>In the public sector, the advent of collective bargaining for home care and child care workers has upgraded their working conditions dramatically, improved the quality of care and enabled once marginalized workers to gain long overdue dignity and respect. Other public sector unions have introduced an innovative concept known as “bargaining for the common good,” accompanying traditional bargaining proposals with broader demands on behalf of their constituencies. </p>
<p>For example, Seattle teachers recently <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/seattle-district-teachers-agree-to-30-minute-recess/">gained</a> additional recess time for students during their bargaining, and in Los Angeles, the “Fix LA” coalition of unions won a commitment from city leaders to restore public jobs lost during the recession and review ways to generate additional revenue for public services. These successes suggest the social benefits that may emerge from a more politicized form of collective bargaining.</p>
<p>There are also new developments among private sector workers that seek to adapt or redefine the bargaining process. The movement among fast food workers for a US$15 hourly wage <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/09/11/ny-raises-minimum-wage-fast-food-workers/72049896/">seeks</a> to create a “community bargaining table” by using street protest, legal action, community support and political pressure to persuade companies to enter into a bargaining relationship. </p>
<h2>New legitimacy</h2>
<p>Elsewhere, workers are exercising their legal protection to engage in concerted action and seeking to bargain with employers even though they lack official union representation. These adaptations have the potential to reclaim the social potential of collective bargaining and help it gain new legitimacy. </p>
<p>The actions of UAW members at Fiat Chrysler remind us that the workers have not forgotten the meaning of bargaining power, the importance of democratic participation and the ability of collective bargaining to promote equality and fairness in both the workplace and society. </p>
<p>Although the glory days of collective bargaining are unlikely to return, the need for its <a href="https://theconversation.com/rebirth-of-progressivism-may-breathe-new-life-in-labor-unions-38517">reemergence </a>remains both necessary and urgent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49160/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Bussel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labor leaders sometimes seem to concede defeat too easily, yet workers are still fighting for their place in the middle class.Bob Bussel, Professor of History, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468312015-08-31T10:14:19Z2015-08-31T10:14:19ZAmerica doesn’t just ‘need a raise,’ we need a new national norm for wage growth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93371/original/image-20150828-19923-18t877a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C59%2C901%2C620&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can workers fight for higher wages in today's economy?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/3295494764/in/photolist-8UyGxK-qRKuTZ-a1m6R8-4idwpL-62dgQU-62dgMf-8NYJw9-7vSuz8-4ibgsY-4i9eZp-9rh89a-i41KNk-4idcvf-9rh87a-ovKCMX-owWgvP-ovYXDY-owpyen-osA38o-oweBaT-ow1mYi-ougMwd-ouoHhC-odHb5Q-otdqWh-oe4Mqu-wNT1PA-x5NqFG-tAihum-wZ4mJN-wjHZzT-aU7RYT-oeJe8x-odiw8m-oeSMmC-wjN4Ei-osjYhY-xep6J9-sGVJCe-tjNcPo-sEjuus-tCY8UL-tDnN6Z">The Library of Congress/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Labor Day approaches, we are likely to hear from a <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/america-needs-a-raise.html">growing chorus</a> of political, religious, academic, labor and business leaders who agree “America needs a raise” to reverse <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/11/384988128/the-fall-and-rise-of-u-s-inequality-in-2-graphs">three decades</a> of wage stagnation and rising income inequality. </p>
<p>But this consensus that something needs to be done has yet to produce a clear narrative or strategy for what to do. Getting there requires an agreement on what norms should guide wage growth, an understanding of the causes of wage stagnation and policies to address these causes in ways consistent with today’s economy and workforce.</p>
<p>It’s been 133 years since New York City <a href="http://www.dol.gov/laborday/history.htm">celebrated</a> the nation’s first Labor Day holiday in 1882 to acknowledge the role workers play in the economy. The federal government followed suit a dozen years later. As we review the suspected culprits behind wage stagnation, now is a good time to consider a new normal to ensure workers get their fair share of America’s prosperity. </p>
<h2>The old norm dies</h2>
<p>America once had at least an implicit norm guiding wages. As the chart below shows, from roughly the end of World War II through much of the 1970s, real (cost of living-adjusted) wages increased in tandem with gains in productivity. </p>
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<p>That norm emerged out of negotiations from 1947 to 1950 between General Motors and the United Auto Workers. It then spread through collective bargaining with other auto companies by unions and companies that adapted it to their specific circumstances in other industries and by nonunion firms that wanted to minimize the incentive for their employees to unionize. </p>
<p>But something changed around 1980, as the chart shows. Since then, real wages have increased only about 8% compared with a 63% increase in productivity. This has set off a great debate among analysts searching for an explanation of what caused this wage-productivity gap to grow. </p>
<h2>The college degree gap</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Card2/publication/24099877_Skill-Biased_Technological_Change_and_Rising_Wage_Inequality_Some_Problems_and_Puzzles/links/5558b85b08ae6943a876ac64.pdf">first argument</a> that gained favor was that changes in technology were producing “skill-biased technological change” that increased demand and pushed up wages for more highly educated workers. </p>
<p>The growing wage gap in the 1980s between those with a college degree and those without one <a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/jan08/w12984.html">supported</a> this view. If this was the primary cause, the remedy should be increased education. </p>
<p>However, growth in this gap <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/raising-americas-pay">eased</a> the following decade and especially since 2000, according to Economic Policy Institute think tank. While there is little question that the long-run effects of technological change are in this upward direction and will thereby make it harder for uneducated workers to command high wages, there is also a <a href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/files/downloads_and_links/impact_of_edu_earnings_inequality_hershbein_kearney_summers.pdf">growing awareness</a> that increased education alone will not solve the wage stagnation problem. </p>
<h2>Globalization’s role</h2>
<p>The next suspect in the blame game has been globalization. </p>
<p>Since 1980, America <a href="http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet">has lost</a> just over one-third of its manufacturing jobs, and it’s <a href="http://www.ddorn.net/papers/Autor-Dorn-Hanson-ChinaSyndrome.pdf">no question</a> that competition from China elsewhere has held down wages. </p>
<p>While investment in modern manufacturing technologies might help rebuild US output, these technologies <a href="http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2015/02/09/putting_us_manufacturing_growth_in_perspective_101525.html">will not generate</a> anywhere near the number of good-paying jobs that have been lost. </p>
<p>Moreover, the small number of manufacturing jobs being “resourced” back to the US are, in many cases, coming back at a discount from prior levels commanded by similar jobs. </p>
<h2>The woeful minimum wage</h2>
<p>The third culprit in the search for an explanation is the decline in purchasing power of the national minimum wage. </p>
<p>Today’s US$7.25 per hour minimum has a <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-minimum-wage-to-12-by-2020-would-lift-wages-for-35-million-american-workers">purchasing power</a> about 25% below its peak in 1968. Raising the national minimum to $10.10, as <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/11/obama-continues-1010-minimum-wage-push-gop-calls-h/">proposed</a> by President Obama and allies in Congress, would restore the purchasing power for those now at the bottom of the wage distribution. </p>
<p>But this effort has been <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/204802-gop-blocks-1010-minimum-wage">blocked</a> by the ongoing political gridlock in Washington. This has led to campaigns to increase the minimum wage in different cities and states, most notably the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/upshot/what-a-15-minimum-wage-would-mean-for-your-city.html?_r=0">successful fight</a> for $15 in Seattle and efforts of fast-food workers to raise or eliminate tipped wage minimums. Local innovations like this help but are not likely to spread to less hospitable communities and states across the country.</p>
<h2>The decline of unions</h2>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-us-labor-unions-and-why-they-still-matter-38263">analysts</a> have begun to recognize that the long-term decline in unions and worker bargaining power accounts for a sizable portion of the problem. </p>
<p>It is no coincidence that the gap between wages and productivity began to expand dramatically around 1980, a turning point for collective bargaining. </p>
<p>That’s when union bargaining power began the three-decade-long decline that continues today. International competition was <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro-minnesota/2012/02/history-lessons-understanding-decline-manufacturing">already eating away</a> at unionized manufacturing companies in the US, but the trend was accelerated by efforts to tame rampant inflation, a deep recession and the growth of nonunion domestic competition. In addition, President Ronald Reagan’s <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-012292">firing</a> of striking air traffic controllers signaled management could take a harder line again unions.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="http://asr.sagepub.com/content/76/4/513.abstract">estimates</a> indicate the decline in unions accounts for as much as 20% to 30% of the rise in wage inequality. But because the 1935 labor law that supported worker rights to organize is so <a href="http://mitsloan-php.s3.amazonaws.com/iwer/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kochan.-2011-ABA-Labor-Law-Journal-article-on-NLRA.pdf">badly broken</a> and outmoded, unions are not likely to rebound soon. And even if they did, the old form of collective bargaining would probably not work as well in today’s global economy.</p>
<p>The one period in which wages began to move in a positive direction since this period of union decline, especially for low-wage workers, was when the labor market finally tightened during the buildup of the high-tech bubble from 1994 to 1997.</p>
<p>Very tight labor markets would do so again, but the Fed’s worry about future inflation is likely to limit how far or how long it will promote tight labor markets.</p>
<h2>A new national wage norm</h2>
<p>This quick review suggests there is no single cause of wage stagnation and therefore no silver bullet for reversing it. </p>
<p>But what if we focused instead on reestablishing a simple norm that wages and incomes should rise in tandem with worker productivity? How might we retrofit the old policies and institutions that supported this norm to work in today’s innovation-based economy?</p>
<p>Such an effort has to start with education. Continual technological changes require both higher levels of skill and the ability to learn throughout one’s career. This calls for strategies that expand apprenticeship programs and technical schools that engender the skills companies will need as baby boomers retire, as well as expanding the number of college graduates with the advanced science, technical, math and problem-solving skills in high demand. </p>
<p>If global competition makes it difficult to sustain high wages in manufacturing or other industries under outsourcing pressure, then wage increases in these sectors will need to be tied more directly to profits, customer service or other indicators of enterprise performance. This is the approach the United Auto Workers and domestic automakers took to better align incentives of owners and workers in ways that both help drive productivity and reinstall a sense of fairness at the workplace. </p>
<p>While this kind of norm should emerge from the private sector, ultimately it will take a comprehensive update of labor law to provide workers the ability to bargain at the highest levels where the key decisions affecting wages are made. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/business/labor-board-says-franchise-workers-can-bargain-with-parent-company.html">ruling</a> last week by the National Labor Relations Board allowing subcontracted workers to negotiate with the parent firm is a step in the right direction. It may serve as a precursor to permitting fast-food workers to negotiate directly with a parent firm such as McDonald’s as opposed to only with individual restaurant franchisees.</p>
<p>More reforms such as this one are necessary to protect and empower low-wage workers. Such labor reforms could include creating enterprise-wide “work councils” and supporting efforts of employees and contractors at “sharing” economy companies like Uber to negotiate a fair share of the revenue they help produce. One way involves drawing on the bargaining power provided by <a href="https://www.sherpashare.com/">apps</a> that help them calculate their hourly earnings after deducting the full range of expenses they incur. </p>
<p>Minimum wages could also be tied to other economic indicators such as the cost of living or the ratio of the minimum to median wages and raised gradually to allow employers to make adjustments in strategy to avoid or minimize negative employment effects. That’s the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/04/the-early-results-from-americas-experiments-with-higher-minimum-wages/">strategy</a> Seattle employed to pass its $15 minimum while easing the impact on business. </p>
<h2>How to spread the new norm</h2>
<p>What might replace collective bargaining as the means for diffusing this norm across the economy? Here government can learn from its <a href="http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/ca_11246.htm">historic role</a> in spreading equal employment practices across industry when it started in 1965 requiring government contractors to take affirmative actions to eliminate discrimination in employment. </p>
<p>The purchasing power of government can be brought to bear by requiring employers to disclose their wage and hour compliance records. It can also give priority in awarding contracts to firms that pay above-average wages and have in place supportive productivity-enhancing work practices. </p>
<p>The federal government is on a course to do the first part. President Obama signed an executive order requiring companies to disclose their compliance records. Now it is time to move on to the second part of this strategy.</p>
<p>So this Labor Day, let’s not only chant that America needs a raise but also rally around a simple norm that all workers should share fairly in the economic growth they help produce. We need to start pursuing this norm in ways that are well-matched to the needs of an innovation- and knowledge-driven global economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kochan has received funding from The Thomas Haas Foundation for his work on building a new social contract for the next generation workforce..
</span></em></p>The chorus chanting ‘America needs a raise!’ will undoubtedly grow as Labor Day approaches. They’re not wrong, but America needs more than that.Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.