two tier

  • Blowing Holes in the Low-Road Approach

    The Remapping Debate website yesterday exposed the real motives behind a consulting company’s August report that suggested manufacturing companies are finding advantages to investing in the U.S.

  • California Grocery Workers Win Settlement, Wait for Details
    Jenny Brown
    Sep 22 2011 - 12:38pm

    Southern California grocery workers have wrested a tentative agreement from their three profitable employers. The union said the settlement “protects your health care” but did not release details.

  • Next Low-Wage Haven: USA
    Jane Slaughter
    Aug 4 2011 - 10:49am

    Jokes about the U.S. becoming “Europe’s Mexico” are commonplace, but now high-priced consultants are pushing the notion in all seriousness. As Chinese wages rise and U.S. wages fall, manufacturing costs in the two countries are converging fast.

  • Strike Beats Back Pension Cuts at NY Nuclear Plants
    Howie Hawkins and Vincent Lloyd
    Aug 5 2011 - 11:10pm

    Older workers defended pension benefits for younger workers in a successful strike at two nuclear reactors in Oswego, New York. IBEW Local 97’s strike drew notable community support, aimed at protecting union jobs and benefits, but also nuclear safety as a skeleton crew ran the plant.

  • UAW Members Protest 50% Wage Cut at GM Plant, Demand a Vote
    Jane Slaughter
    Oct 21 2010 - 2:57pm

    Two hundred auto workers picketed October 16 outside the locked gates of their union’s headquarters in Detroit, protesting an agreement to let General Motors pay half wages at a suburban assembly plant.

  • Viewpoint: One-Sided Class War: The UAW-GM 2007 Negotiations

    Sam Gindin

    In 1978, then United Auto Workers (UAW) President Douglas Fraser, frustrated with corporate America's new aggressiveness, accused employers of waging a "one-sided class war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society." In response, he warned, "we in the UAW intend to reforge the links with those who believe in struggle: the kind of people who sat-down in the factories in the 1930s and who marched in Selma in the 1960s." . . . .


    Yes
  • Opposition Swells Against Concessionary Auto Contracts

    Tiffany Ten Eyck and Chris Kutalik

    Negotiations between the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) were anything but predictable this year. Nationwide strikes at both General Motors and Chrysler, givebacks on an unprecedented scale, and the stirrings of a strong “vote no” opposition inside the union rocked the old auto pattern agreement playbook. . . .


    Yes
  • UAW-General Motors Proposed Contract At a Glance

    Dianne Feeley, Tiffany Ten Eyck

    After a brief two-day strike in late September, United Auto Workers (UAW) negotiators signed a tentative agreement with General Motors. Members began voting on the proposed contract local by local in early October. . . .


    Yes
  • National Auto Strike Leaves Lingering Questions

    Tonyia Young

    For the first time in 37 years the United Auto Workers (UAW) launched a two-day nationwide strike against General Motors in late September. More than 73,000 production workers poured out of GM plants after an 11 a.m. strike deadline was passed on September 24. . . .


    Yes
  • In Showcase of Labor-Management Teamwork, Workers Choose the Old Way

    by Tom Hopp

    Last year was a very good year for the 7,200 workers, members of UAW Local 1853, at Saturn's Spring Hill, Tennessee manufacturing complex. A string of victories was capped by the late December ratification of a new contract. This contract closely mirrors the master agreement in place at every other General Motors facility. Before, GM's Saturn plant was the poster child for labor-management cooperation, or team concept, in place of negotiated rights.


    Yes