Preparing for the 2023 UAW-Big 3 Contracts
by Dianne Feeley
With new UAW leaders sworn in, the union is focusing on bargaining for its Big Three auto contracts, which expire September 14.
Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) are gearing up to pivot to electric vehicle production. Plants assembling EVs will have 30% fewer parts, requiring less storage space, more robots, and fewer workers. The 2023 contracts will set the pattern for this new world of vehicles and how workers survive it.
The fight for a decent contract must break through the long-established culture where members view the union as an insurance policy. A successful member-based campaign strategy needs to be a beehive of activity with all hands on deck.
Empowering workers can bring forward new leaders to build the coordination necessary. This is the challenge — it’s an enormous responsibility and a short window.
Traditionally, UAW strike preparation was simply asking the membership for a strike vote and then keeping a tight lid on the state of the negotiations. That’s considered top secret until negotiations have produced a contract and the “highlights” are distributed to members.
An informational meeting is held, which is about the only place a question might be answered, and sharp debates have happened there, but by then it’s very late in the game.
When negotiations are stalled and a strike proceeds, workers are instructed not to talk to the press — authorized UAW spokespeople will do that. Even the printed signs strikers carry are standardized and uninformative.
HIGH STAKES
Given the stakes for the 2023 contract, new President Shawn Fain and his team understand that this routinist approach is deadly. They want to build a contract campaign, but many of the appointed representatives and local leaders, even if won over to doing something differently, haven’t learned to listen to members and don’t necessarily have the required organizing skills.
Nor has the membership been encouraged to consider how it’s possible to win a better contract. They’ve been schooled in putting forward demands, only to learn months later they have been discarded because they “aren’t possible.”
WHAT IS A CONTRACT CAMPAIGN?
A contract campaign begins far before negotiations start. The issues are primarily developed not at a negotiating table but at work sites where workers signal the coming battle through everyday struggles.
Clearly members and supporters of Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the reform movement that got Fain’s team elected, will be key in discussions, organizing on the job, and more. Such a campaign can’t stop when punching out either. Auto workers need to bring discussions to their homes and spread the word throughout communities. Everyone needs to know the central issues.
As the negotiations proceed they will need to show management they are prepared to back up the bargaining team. This means wearing buttons, writing group grievances, delivering them to management, organizing rallies and informational pickets, reaching out to other unions for support.
Once there is a tentative agreement, workers need the time to read and discuss the proposal before any vote takes place.
A key UAWD organizer, Scott Houldieson, who works at the Chicago Ford assembly plant, remarked: “We believe that solidarity unionism based on rank-and-file democracy can be the basis for turning our union around. I am looking forward to starting the next chapter in the storied history of the UAW.”
Dianne Feeley is a member of Detroit DSA and a UAW retiree. Excerpted from Against the Current magazine, of which Dianne is an editor.
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