Through three decades of steady decline, the United Auto Workers has projected somewhat of a “we’ve got ours” attitude towards new organizing. Not anymore. Under the leadership of radical activist Bob King, for the first time since 2005, the UAW gained members in 2010 adding over 21,000 members. (The union’s membership in 2009 was the lowest it had been since 1940.) Increased production at the Big Three accounted for the majority of those new UAW members, but the union has also been aggressive organizing outside of manufacturing in casinos, healthcare, colleges and other sectors.
And the union will soon announce the target of its most aggressive organizing effort in recent memory – a foreign auto manufacturer with plants in the southern U.S. Over the past year the union has been building what amounts to a global army of young activists trained in the U.S. to attack transnational corporations wherever they do business. Tactics will include protests at dealerships, auto shows, overseas headquarters and even World Cup matches.
Richard Besinger, legendary organizing guru hired to run UAW organizing, has stated the union will mount the largest boycott in history this summer calling on political, community and left wing allies as well as other unions here and abroad for support. “It has the potential to be the largest, sustained consumer action by organized labor,” said Dennis Williams, the UAW Secretary Treasurer, “We have the resources and the people to be successful in this mission.” Newly trained college recruits have already begun knocking doors in communities with auto plants in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee trolling for issues and shop floor activists.
However, “it is pretty hard to see the union breaking through,” according to James Rubenstein, an auto industry analyst. “It would have to be a plant where the working conditions have gotten so bad that people are up in arms and furious with management. There really aren’t any bad factories anymore. These plants are now warm and fuzzy.” The pay differential between union and non-union auto plants is now around $10 an hour with new “second tier” UAW workers making considerably less than their non-union counterparts.
The union also laid the groundwork at its bargaining convention last week for a strike against Ford this year. Ford has the only contract without a strike clause and has rebounded from the recession beyond every expectation. Union campaign rhetoric has already started on Ford’s profits and CEO compensation, even as the company paid out $5000 in profit sharing to every hourly employee in January, $2000 above the formula laid out in the UAW bargaining agreement.
