TNS550

From an article in the WSJ after the vote: “Since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 with its tens of billions of dollars in electric-vehicle subsidies, the Administration has used funding to, er, persuade auto makers to welcome unions. Sometimes the pressure is explicit, as when the Energy Department offered $12 billion in additional subsidies to retool plants using union labor. It also comes via threats, as when 33 Senators sent a letter suggesting that car makers that opposed unions would lose access to federal support.

VW produces its ID.4 electric SUV in Chattanooga, and it got the message. The company mounted significantly less opposition to the UAW than it did in 2019, declining to inform employees about the potential costs of unionizing. In a statement Friday, it thanked workers for voting and suggested it won’t appeal to the National Labor Relations Board. If subsidies help VW offset the cost of paying higher union wages, there’s less reason to oppose the UAW. Taxpayers, not the company, will foot much of the bill for more expensive production.”

Prior to the vote the NLRB, now with the majority of board members appointed by the current administration, changed rules to “encourage” a company to accept the union if certain numbers of employees signed a petition, and if not accepted, shortened the period of time to hold a vote and included other restrictions on what the company could say in opposition to the union. I’m in Tennessee and while the auto companies have been able to fight off the union in the past, in my opinion, with all the folks moving to Tennessee and other southern states, many of them are favorable to unions, or at least more receptive to them. Also I believe a factor in the positive vote for the union is the current economic conditions with inflation, higher mortgage rates, etc cutting into the take home pay and the workers believing that the uaw will make it all better.

chassis

DTNA workers voted in the UAW. Vance will follow soon.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...e/73479190007/

HotRodW

The UAW was already in, they just agreed to terms for a fat new contract. The extremely generous terms of the contract will certainly help the UAW's cause in Vance, but there are no guarantees.

mikapen

The UAW might stub its toe on this one....
Lots of resistance. It'll be interesting to see.

chassis

Vance vote in process this week.

KrustyKustom

The guy that is the president of the UAW (Shawn Fain) is nuts....anyone listened to what he has to say? He has "everyone that is rich" is evil mentality, he does not see affluent people as job creators. UAW will only add cost to MB products.

mikapen

UAW lost today, 56 - 44%

https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/ala...ing-uaw-union/

KrustyKustom

Glad to see this outcome. Hopefully Shawn Fain can eat a little "humble pie".....if that guy is the face of the UAW the future is not very bright.

chassis

There will be another vote in the future. It's how it works. The UAW won't go away.

wildta

Continue to grow their war chest with more and more "membership" dues.

streborx

The WSJ reports that the UAW has $40 million budgeted over the next 2 years to unionize auto factories where they are currently absent. At least this won't be coming out of the pockets of MB workers.

chassis

But it will.

streborx

Because the UAW won't be able to shutter the MB factory for 6 weeks while extorting MB for higher wages?

mikapen

I'll take that bet.
It was a dominant defeat. Lies didn't work.

chassis

Because there is no free lunch. The proletariat pays to maintain the machine.

Frenetic

UAW won’t stop. It took three votes at the VW plant before it flipped.

So, no matter how you feel about unions, what’s wrong with the working man getting paid more?

While I’m no union advocate, something is wrong when the CEO to worker pay ratio was 20 to 1 in the 60s versus the near 400 to 1 now. https://www.statista.com/statistics/...rms-in-the-us/

I have no explanation for this, but if I were a blue-collar worker I would say FU to the CEO and unionize, unless they’re willing to pay me more. So, hopefully the lame, can’t-screw-in-a-bolt correctly workers at Vance got a raise out of this.

BlueYonder

What's wrong with the voters at the Alabama plant not voting the union in? Or are those Alabama hillbillies just not smart enough to know what's best for them? Maybe the Feds should step in and declare the vote invalid?

streborx

Nothing wrong with every employee benefitting from a company's success. Rather than the conventional union/management adversarial structure, I much prefer an ESOP (employee stock ownership program), where every employee is a shareholder. It was always enjoyable passing out the quarterly bonus checks to everyone in the shop, shaking their hand and thanking them for their contribution. Sure beat the complaints I heard from union folks about the puny strike pay they earned for standing outside in the rain.

AlmonteVG

This is always my argument for the non union lovers out there. The money is there, no matter how you put it there’s 7 slices of pizza in a pizza pie. If blue collar workers get 3 and white collar 4 that would be fine. Somehow in the last couple of decades the argument from white collar America in all industries has been why are these uneducated fools getting almost half of the pie, all they do is actually build the product! During obamas whole thing reports came out of how many useless super visor high paying positions there were in these facilities. It’s just crazy to me how the propaganda is to blame the hardworking ppl that actually put the cars together for everything from quality to price of the vehicles and no one bats an eye to the white collar workers that actually design the vehicles, elect what corners can be cut, perform quality control on said cars, and basically run the show.

OldManAndHisCar

But you are NOT a blue-collar worker. I do hate to see car MFG line staff put under the same "blue collar" umbrella as SKILLED workers like plumbers, welders, electricians...the majority of "line workers" do not much more than "insert tab A into slot B"...

Again...the Union Members theme song.....

AlmonteVG

I myself am a proud Union Electrician IBEW 164 member. If I understand your argument correctly it’s that they are just grunts that insert round pegs into the round holes. The geniuses upstairs do all of the heavy lifting, just figuratively of course and therefore deserve to get most of the profits.

This has been the anti union propaganda for every industry the last couple of decades since white collar has never been union. This argument might seem fine and dandy at first glance but why is it that when the quality at a plant goes down, or the quality of the parts on the vehicle goes down the dumb grunts always get the blame. You can’t have it both ways either they are dumb grunts. Or the most integral part of the company, responsible for assuring the perfection of what rolls off of the assembly lines.

mikapen

IBEW is significantly different from UAW.
I have great respect for the former, and no respect for the latter.

Anybody wonder why Sean Fain's (UAW) compensation is secret?

TNS550

Fain’s compensation (at least as reported to the IRS) will not be secret. The union is technically a nonprofit organization, so they file a tax form 990, which is public info. He became president in 2023 and the union’s 2023 return was just due May 15.

I looked at their 2022 return and the past president’s reported W-2 comp was $238,000. The top 30 employees combined reported comp totaled north of $4.25 million. The highest paid was the Sec-Treas at $300,000+.

OldManAndHisCar

TNS - the thing is, what is their "Other" compensation? This is a sticky pickle.

For instance, as a business owner "I" get extra stuff all the time. My business owns my bicycles and pays for "Marketing" including trips all over the planet. My business owns two cars (both are AMG) and a vacation home. The variable here...this is MY business (and avoiding taxes). This is absolutely NOT the same as the unions who have no problem what so ever soaking it to the member base - and then even stopping the work of others (who wont cross the dogmatic line).

Some years ago we had a Union line up at a facility (under construction). I showed up in a clown costume and a mini-bicycle and sign that said "Honk if you hate clowns"....at the end of the day, a union member made a threat (to kick my *** - on my own property even). They all went to jail, they all violated RICO and the strike was over. Their Union leader even left the city all together......he knew he was now powerless.

So, the union in their ignorance and arrogance stopped construction of a medical facility, put EVERY other trade out of jobs. Stopped the income of every other person right down to the garbage man and window washers.....they are thugs. They need to be banned.

Another part of the solution in my life - I left Illinois for Florida (closing a number of medical facilities in the process - creating a "Heathcare Desert" the ignorant Dems love to ***** about). See, we do not have those issues in FL....more and more the nation is going our way.

mikapen

Shawn Fain now under investigation.
Shades of UAWs past.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/busin...ion/index.html