Tag Archives: UAW

United Auto Works strike being controlled by socialist activists; has already cost the economy $7.7 billion

Biden-with-UAW-Strikers

Important Takeaways:

  • Career socialist activists ‘are pulling the strings’ on UAW strike that’s cost the economy $7.7bn and claimed 6,000 jobs: ‘Eat the rich’ union leader – on $350k salary – is being advised by hardcore left-wingers who ‘want class warfare’
  • The United Auto Workers union president who has orchestrated massive ongoing strikes at a cost of billions to the American economy is being advised by career socialist activists whose priority is to keep the auto industry ‘wounded for months’.
  • Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW, has ordered a walkout of more than 30,000 workers across America’s ‘Big 3’ automakers – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – in an unprecedented round of industrial action that entered its 39th day on Monday.
  • The strikes, which could rumble on for weeks and grow to include thousands more staff, have already cost the US economy $7.7 billion, according to analysts. Many union members, who are earning just $500-a-week strike pay, are also increasingly concerned that Fain’s war of attrition could do more harm than good.
  • Fain, 54, who was narrowly elected UAW president in March and was paid around $350,000 by the union last year
  • But controversy around his leadership began weeks before he was elected when he suddenly fired a team of his closest advisers – including several veterans of the union and auto industry – and surrounded himself with socialist activists.
  • Leaked private messages and strategy documents written by members of Fain’s inner circle reveal their goal is to launch unprecedented strike action, ‘keep [car companies] wounded for months’, and ‘purge’ union staff who don’t agree with their radical approach.
  • The mastermind behind Fain’s approach is believed to be his de-facto chief of staff, Chris Brooks, 39, who has been nicknamed ‘Fain’s brain’ for his influence over the UAW leader.
  • Brooks, who often sits beside Fain at negotiations with the Big 3, is a left-wing journalist, activist and one-time member of the Bread & Roses caucus of Marxist organizers within the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA recently drew fierce criticism for the alleged sympathy of some members towards Hamas.
  • Benjamin Dictor – Lawyer and outside counsel for UAW describes himself as an ‘aspiring consigliere’ to the working class. Represented four protesters who claimed they were assaulted outside Trump Tower by security guards in 2015
  • Jonah Furman – UAW communications director joined UAW, where he drafts media statements, after a stint as organizer for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and wrote for left-wing publication Labor Notes

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United Auto Workers strike could be the next crisis for the economy

UAW-Strike-2023

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘We’re in the abyss’: How the UAW strike could hit the economy
  • While the current economic impact of a targeted strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) is limited, the threat of a full walkout looms over contract negotiations with auto giants Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
  • Right now, that threat is hard to quantify — any estimate will depend on the length of the strike and how many more workers are called to the picket line.
  • Even so, the economic impact of a full-fledged 10-day strike against the Big Three could top $5 billion, the Anderson Economic Group estimated in an August report.
  • A months-long work stoppage could also eat into the Big Three’s cash holdings, Fitch Ratings warned Friday, particularly if the targeted strikes balloon to a widespread shutdown.
  • And autoworkers are already being laid off by some companies, as thousands more UAW members brace for making just $500 per week on the picket line.
  • “Nobody knows now. We’re in the abyss,” Pete DeVito Jr., and automotive director of the United Service Workers Union, told The Hill in a phone interview.
  • Automakers and suppliers are already planning to lay off nonstriking workers and are ringing alarm bells about the potential long-term impacts.
  • Ford temporarily laid off 600 workers Friday, citing “knock-on effects” from the strike, and General Motors said it would likely lay off around 2,000 employees, the Detroit Free Press reported.
  • DeVito also warned that consumers could bear the brunt of higher car prices, which had just begun to fall from historic highs during the pandemic.

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United Auto Workers Union goes on strike against Big Three Auto makers

Ford-automaker

Important Takeaways:

  • UAW to Strike All Big Three Automakers at the Same Time for First Time in History
  • “Tonight for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the big three at once,” UAW president Shawn Fain said on Thursday. They are prepared to strike at midnight, according to Fain.
  • They plan to strike at a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Stellantis plant in Toledo, Ohio; and a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan.
  • “If we need to go all out, we will,” Fain declared. “Everything is on the table.”
  • Roughly 150,000 American auto workers are represented by the UAW union. President Joe Biden’s green agenda is a major concern for autoworkers whose jobs are being eliminated by Biden’s rapid push for a transition to electric vehicles (EVs), which require less workers to produce than gas-powered vehicles. As Breitbart’s Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour reported, “While autoworkers are seeing their wages slashed due to the EV adoption, the Big Three executives have enjoyed a windfall thanks to the EV tax credits in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).”

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GM asks judge to reinstate racketeering case against rival Fiat Chrysler

By Nick Carey and Sanjana Shivdas

(Reuters) – General Motors Co. on Monday asked a U.S. federal judge to reinstate a racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), saying it has new information on foreign accounts used in an alleged bribery scheme involving its smaller rival and union leaders.

In its filing to U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, GM says the scheme, which it alleges occurred between FCA executives and former United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders, “is much broader and deeper than previously suspected or revealed as it involved FCA Group apparently using various accounts in foreign countries … to control corrupt individuals by compensating and corrupting those centrally involved in the scheme to harm GM.”

Last month, Borman threw out the racketeering lawsuit, saying the No. 1 U.S. automaker’s alleged injuries were not caused by FCA’s alleged violations.

GM alleged FCA bribed UAW officials over many years to corrupt the bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars. GM was seeking “substantial damages” that one analyst said could have totaled at least $6 billion.

“These new facts warrant amending the court’s prior judgment, so we are respectfully asking the court to reinstate the case,” GM said in a statement.

“FCA will continue to defend itself vigorously and pursue all available remedies in response to GM’s attempts to resurrect this groundless lawsuit,” FCA said in a statement.

In affidavits accompanying GM’s filing, attorneys for the automaker said “reliable information concerning the existence of foreign bank accounts” used in the alleged scheme had only come to light recently.

“The UAW is unaware of any allegations regarding illicit off-shore accounts as claimed,” by GM, the UAW said in a statement. “If GM actually has substantive information supporting its allegations, we ask that they provide it to us so we can take all appropriate actions.”

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber, Aurora Ellis and Steve Orlofsky)

United Auto Workers Branch Joins Boycott of Israel

A local chapter of the United Auto Workers has announced they are joining the boycott of Israel in support of the Palestinians.

UAW Local 2865, the union that represents teaching assistants at the University of California, voted to join the boycott on December 4th.  The basis for their anti-Semitic decision was they claim Israel is launching “ongoing human rights violations” against Palestinians.

The margin of passage was 66% to 34%.

The ballot language passed by the group calls for the university and the UAW to “divest[ing] their investments, including pension funds, from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of Palestinian people.”

Officials admitted that only 2,168 of the 13,000 reported members of the chapter voted on the measure.