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  • TV Highlights This Week

News Articles: United Auto Workers

Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), during a campaign event with former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in Flint, Mich., on Friday, Oct. 4, 2024.

Tagged as: 

  • National

UAW President Shawn Fain explains why he supports Trump's tariffs

Shawn Fein supports auto industry tariffs but calls broad tariffs "reckless."

April 07, 2025
|
By:
  • Steve Inskeep
A Pro-Palestinian protester climbs a support beam near the United Center on Wednesday.

Tagged as: 

  • Elections

United Auto Workers calls for a Palestinian speaker at DNC as thousands protest nearby

Criticism for Democrats not including a Palestinian speaker is coming from across the party — including organized labor. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters are gathering nearby for one last push.

August 22, 2024
|
By:
  • Jaclyn Diaz and
  • Liz Baker
More than 5,000 workers assemble luxury SUVs and EV batteries for Mercedes-Benz in Alabama.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Mercedes workers vote no to union. UAW says they were illegally intimidated

More than 5,000 Mercedes-Benz workers who build luxury SUVs in Alabama were eligible to vote on whether to join the UAW. Workers faced intense anti-union messaging from Mercedes in the run-up.

May 17, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu and
  • Stephan Bisaha
A giant Mercedes-Benz logo towers over the tree line at the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International plant in Vance, Ala., on June 7, 2017.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Auto workers in Alabama are voting on joining a union. Here's what you need to know

Workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama start voting this week on whether to join the United Auto Workers union. Last month, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee voted overwhelmingly to unionize.

May 13, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu and
  • Stephan Bisaha
Over the past several years, Alabama workers have found themselves at the center of three high-profile labor disputes in three industries. Antwon McGhee (left) has worked as a coal miner for 17 years. Isaiah Thomas formerly worked at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer. Moesha Chandler works in assembly at Mercedes-Benz in Vance.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Unions double-down in the Deep South: Can Alabama pave the way?

Three high-profile labor disputes have unfolded in central Alabama over the past several years, with Amazon warehouse workers, coal miners and autoworkers all speaking out for change.

May 06, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu and
  • Stephan Bisaha
Union workers at Daimler Truck who make Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses in North Carolina won significant raises and cost of living allowances.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

UAW strike at Daimler Truck averted at 11th hour

More than 7,000 Daimler Truck workers, most of them in North Carolina, had threatened to go on strike. The UAW says the workers will get raises of at least 25% plus cost of living allowances.

April 26, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu

Tagged as: 

  • Economy

The UAW's decade-long fight to form a union at VW's Chattanooga plant (Update)

(Note: This episode originally ran in 2023.)

Union membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, support for unions among Americans was the highest it's been in decades. This dissonance is due, in part, to the difficulties of one important phase in the life cycle of a union: setting up a union in the first place. One place where that has been particularly clear is at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Back in 2008, Volkswagen announced that they would be setting up production in the United States after a 20-year absence. They planned to build a new auto manufacturing plant in Chattanooga.

Volkswagen has plants all over the world, all of which have some kind of worker representation, and the company said that it wanted that for Chattanooga too. So, the United Auto Workers, the union that traditionally represents auto workers, thought they would be able to successfully unionize this plant.

They were wrong.

In this episode, we tell the story of the UAW's 10-year fight to unionize the Chattanooga plant. And, what other unions can learn from how badly that fight went for labor.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Josephine Nyounai, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Keith Romer. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+
in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

April 24, 2024
|
By:
  • Amanda Aronczyk,
  • Nick Fountain,
  • and 2 more
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., celebrate as results from the union election at the auto plant come in on April 19, 2024. The final tally was 2,628 in favor of unionizing and 985 against.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Volkswagen workers vote yes to unionizing, igniting UAW's push to organize the South

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted overwhelmingly to unionize with the UAW, setting a new trajectory for labor unions in the American South.

April 20, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu and
  • Stephan Bisaha
Some 4,300 hourly workers at this Volkswagen automobile assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., are voting this week on whether to join the United Auto Workers union.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Why this vote at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant is historic for the South

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., are voting this week on whether to join the United Auto Workers union. Two previous attempts to unionize the plant failed. Ballots will be counted on Friday.

April 17, 2024
|
By:
  • Stephan Bisaha and
  • Andrea Hsu
Jeremy Kimbrell has worked at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Ala., since 1999. Having been involved in several failed union drives, he says this latest one feels different.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Seeking to defy history, the UAW is coming closer to unionizing in the South

Autoworkers at Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., will vote in mid-April on whether to join the United Auto Workers union. Mercedes workers in Tuscaloosa County, Ala., will soon follow.

April 05, 2024
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu and
  • Stephan Bisaha
President Biden is greeted by Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers. The union endorsed Biden's reelection bid on Wednesday.

Tagged as: 

  • Elections

The UAW endorsed Biden — and panned Republican frontrunner Trump as a 'scab'

Most of the country's other big unions endorsed President Biden in the earliest days of his reelection campaign. But the United Auto Workers held back until today.

January 25, 2024
|
By:
  • Deepa Shivaram and
  • Andrea Hsu
United Auto Workers members strike the General Motors Lansing Delta Assembly Plant on September 29, 2023 in Lansing, Michigan. xx% of GM workers have so far voted xx on ratifying the tentative contract agreement.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

GM autoworkers' contract appears likely to pass over many workers' objections

Even with pay raises of 25% and other improvements on the table, a large share of General Motors autoworkers are voting to reject the contract reached after a nearly seven-week strike.

November 15, 2023
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu
The United Auto Workers union and the Big 3 automakers say the record contract deals reached after a six-week strike will be life-changing for autoworkers. But some lament the gains don't fully make up for past concessions.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Why thousands of UAW autoworkers are voting 'no' on Big 3's 'life-changing' contracts

After a six-week strike, the United Auto Workers union reached record contract deals with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. But as workers vote on the deals, some say it's not enough.

November 14, 2023
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu
United Auto Workers members attend a solidarity rally as the UAW strikes the Big Three automakers on Sept. 15 in Detroit.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

Autoworkers used to have lifelong health care and pension income. They want it back

Retirement security remains a sticking point in the ongoing talks between the United Auto Workers union and the Big 3 automakers. The union wants to see a return of pensions and retiree health care.

October 18, 2023
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu
UAW President Shawn Fain joins union members at a rally at the UAW Local 551 hall on the South Side in Chicago on Oct. 7, 2023. Fain said on Friday the union will now be ready to expand its strike at any time, calling it a "new phase" in its fight against the Big Three automakers.

Tagged as: 

  • Business

UAW announces new approach in its historic strike against the Big Three automakers

A month after auto workers first walked off the job, UAW President Shawn Fain said the union will be ready to call for an expansion of its strike against Big Three automakers at any time.

October 13, 2023
|
By:
  • Andrea Hsu
  • Load More

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