In December the leadership of the United Auto Workers reached a settlement with the Justice Department that opens the door to election of top union officers by referendum vote of the membership. That might well end more than 70 years of one-party control and help democratize a union once known for animated internal debate and competitive leadership …
Great news: Fiat Chrysler has announced a $1 billion, 2,000-job investment in plants in Michigan and Ohio. Donald Trump didn’t quite claim credit in his predictable tweet about the news, but Reuters, for instance, reported the story with the headline “Fiat Chrysler ups the ante as automakers respond to Trump.” Except that’s not what happened at all. In 2015 contract …
Union workers, not Donald Trump, pushed Fiat Chrysler into creating 2,000 jobs Read More »
During the nearly two years he worked at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., Ed Hunter, 43, spent his days bent over, crawling in and out of cars on the assembly line. He believes the posture slowly destroyed his body and led to an accident he suffered in June 2011. “When I got into the …
Union workers at West Hartford’s Colt Firearms plant are scared for their jobs after the company announced they will open a new manufacturing plant in Central Florida. The move can’t help but remind one of this year’s NLRB complaint against Boeing for moving a plant of theirs to South Carolina from Washington as retaliation against …
Gunmaker Holding Gun to the Head of UAW Members in Connecticut Read More »
Two Chinese companies have agreed to manufacture in America, instead of in China, a significant portion of the wind turbines needed for a Texas wind farm. The deal is a result of white collar Chinese executives negotiating with blue collar union officers to create green collar jobs in the U.S. The agreement defies stereotypes about unions as constantly combative, excessively expensive and environmentally challenged. The United Steelworkers union, which struck the deal, has a track record of engaging with enlightened CEOs for mutual benefit. It has a long green history. And it has worked to return off-shored jobs to the U.S.
For decades, unionized manufacturing jobs have been considered the surest path to middle-class prosperity and realizing the vaunted dream for blue-collar workers,” writes Nick Carey in an eloquent analysis for Reuters. Yet today General Motors is in bankruptcy and the United Auto Workers has made a series of painful cutbacks from wages for future workers …
The Fall of General Motors and the Three Paths to the Middle Class Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
