Three separate unions representing flight attendants at major U.S. airlines picketed and held rallies at 30 airports Tuesday as they push for new contracts and higher wages.
Despite U.S. polls showing growing enthusiasm for unions, membership rates have been on a decades-long decline.
More than 81% of United Auto Workers Local 933 members voted Tuesday to ratify a new employment contract with Indianapolis-based Allison. The members had been working under the terms of a previous contract that expired in mid-November.
The 1,500 members of UAW Local 933 are making plans to walk out at Allison Transmission if the company doesn’t meet the union’s demands.
Shawn Fain, a union firebrand from Kokomo, first shocked organized labor in March by being elected the United Auto Workers’ national president. Then he surprised the Big Three automakers by organizing a strategic strike.
The Indianapolis-based nurses cite poor staffing ratios, patient care and wages as some of the driving reasons behind their efforts.
The United Auto Workers union overwhelmingly ratified new contracts with Ford and Stellantis, that along with a similar deal with General Motors will raise pay across the industry, force automakers to absorb higher costs and help reshape the auto business.
The outcome was closer than expected after the UAW’s celebrations of victories last month on many key demands that led to six weeks of targeted walkouts against GM, Ford and Stellantis.
Critics say the new rule is an overreach by the labor-friendly Biden administration that undermines independent business owners. Some—including the American Hotel and Lodging Association—have already sued to block it.
Under the agreement, the estimated salary range for teachers in the the 2024-25 school year would be $53,460 to $94,000.
At nearly four months, it was by far the longest strike ever for film and television actors.
The escalated walkout began Saturday evening at a Spring Hill, Tennessee plant, GM’s largest in North America. Its nearly 4,000 workers join about 14,000 already striking at GM factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.
The pact includes 25% in general wage increases over the next 4 1/2 years for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified.
The UAW’s move further escalates a labor dispute that’s in its sixth week and now has about 46,000 union workers off the job.
Union leaders want promises from the Big Three automakers that their wave of new electric vehicle battery plants will fall under the UAW’s contract and that workers at those plants will make UAW assembly wages of $32 an hour.
United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain is expected to update members Friday afternoon on progress in contract talks with Detroit’s three automakers as movement was reported with General Motors.
IBJ reporter John Russell talks about his recent trip to Kokomo to learn how the union boss was shaped by his experiences there.
In just a few months, Shawn Fain has gone from obscurity to one of the most visible leaders in America, demanding that his workers get more concessions from the Big Three automakers after two decades of givebacks.
Labor historians say they cannot recall an instance when a sitting president has joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of the more ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
The UAW’s initial list of demands was projected to cost each of the companies $80 billion over four years, according to people familiar with the companies’ estimates.
