#u.a.w.

[iww-gnv]

For as long as anyone can remember, the Indiana city of Kokomo has been a conservative stronghold. Ronald Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in Kokomo. Bill Clinton lost twice. So did Barack Obama. The current mayor, a Republican, is running unopposed for re-election. It’s a town known for something it would prefer to forget: a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1923 that was the largest ever. Yet somehow Kokomo produced a union leader whose rhetoric is aimed at toppling the conservative and moneyed classes — a rebel who rejects the niceties of an earlier era in favor of a sharp-edged confrontation. “Billionaires in my opinion don’t have a right to exist,” says Shawn Fain, who is leading the United Automobile Workers in a multifront labor battle against the Big Three carmakers that has little precedent and is making a lot of noise. In interviews, in speeches and on social media, Mr. Fain hammers the wealthy again and again, making the cause of the union’s 150,000 autoworkers at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis something much broader. “There’s a billionaire class, and there’s the rest of us,” he said at an impromptu news conference outside a Ford plant in Wayne, Mich. “We’re all expected to sit back and take the scraps and live paycheck to paycheck and scrape to get by. We’re second-class citizens.”

#news #shawn fain #united auto workers #uaw #uaw strike #us news #us pol #uspol

[mxlxdroit]

big labor news: United Auto Workers (UAW) is conducting a targeted strike at GM, Ford, and Stellantis as they renegotiate their four-year contracts.

i've gifted this link, so anyone can read it without a subscription!

#chris talks #uspoli #hot labor summer turns into hot labor fall

[trmpt]

[newstfionline]

Monday, September 18, 2023

Americans broadly support military strikes in Mexico, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds (Reuters) About half of Americans support sending U.S. military personnel into Mexico to fight drug cartels, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, though there is less backing for sending troops without Mexico’s approval. The findings show broad public support for calls by most major candidates in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination contest to send special forces into Mexico, the U.S.’s biggest trading partner, or conducting missile or drone strikes there. Some of the candidates have said they would be prepared to send military forces without first receiving permission from the Mexican government. With the United States experiencing a dramatic rise in overdose deaths related to the synthetic opioid fentanyl, tamping down the flow of narcotics from Mexico has become a major theme among Republicans. Almost 80,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, with fentanyl being the primary culprit.

Battle Over Electric Vehicles Is Central to Auto Strike (NYT) A battle between Detroit carmakers and the United Auto Workers union, which escalated on Friday with targeted strikes in three locations, is unfolding amid a once-in-a-century technological upheaval that poses huge risks for both the companies and the union. The strike has come as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions. The established carmakers are trying to defend their profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and foreign automakers. Workers are trying to defend jobs as manufacturing shifts from internal combustion engines to batteries. Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles. A favorable outcome for the U.A.W. would also give the union a strong calling card if, as some expect, it then tries to organize employees at Tesla and other nonunion carmakers like Hyundai, which is planning to manufacture electric vehicles at a massive new factory in Georgia.

Guatemala’s president-elect says he’s ready to call people onto the streets (AP) President-elect Bernardo Arévalo plans to call Guatemalans into the streets next week to protest efforts to derail his presidency before he can take office, he said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press. It would be Arévalo’s first such request since winning the election Aug. 20. Since his landslide victory, the attorney general’s office has continued pursuing multiple investigations related to the registration of Arévalo’s Seed Movement party, and alleged fraud in the election. International observers have said that is not supported by evidence. Arévalo said he has tried his own legal maneuvers to stop those who want to keep him from power, but now it’s necessary for the people to come out to the streets to support him. Arévalo, a progressive lawmaker and academic, shocked Guatemala by making it into an Aug. 20 presidential runoff in which he beat former first lady Sandra Torres by more than 20 points.

Ukraine’s Crimea attacks seen as key to counter-offensive against Russia (BBC) This week saw spectacular Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, hitting Russian warships and missiles. Estimates of the damage done ran into billions of pounds and raised the question: is Ukraine getting ready to retake Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014? Crimea is a Russian fortress, so it is important not to get carried away. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry estimates that some 32,000 Russian troops were stationed in Crimea ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Russian nuclear weapons are reportedly deployed there as well. “[Ukraine’s] strategy has two main goals,” says Oleksandr Musiienko, from Kyiv’s Centre for Military and Legal Studies. “To establish dominance in the north-western Black Sea and to weaken Russian logistical opportunities for their defence lines in the south, near Tokmak and Melitopol.” In other words, operations in Crimea go hand-in-glove with Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south.

Three Neighbors of Ukraine Ban Its Grain as E.U. Restrictions Expire (NYT) Hours after the European Union ended a temporary ban on imports of Ukrainian grain and other products to five member nations, three of them—Poland, Hungary and Slovakia—defied the bloc and said they would continue to bar Ukrainian grain from being sold within their borders. As Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has struggled to ship its grain because of Russia’s invasion, the European Union has opened up to tariff-free food imports from the country, a move that had the unintended consequence of undercutting prices and hurting farmers in several countries in the east of the European Union. As part of a deal meant to protect those countries, the bloc allowed some grain to transit through them, but prohibited domestic sales. Brussels’ decision to let that deal expire at midnight on Friday revived an issue that has threatened European Union unity on support for Ukraine. The Hungarian agriculture minister, Istvan Nagy, announced an extended ban that would include more products in a Facebook post early Saturday morning, saying that “we will protect the interests of the farmers.” On Friday, Poland’s president ordered that the ban be kept in place and Slovakia’s ministry of agriculture also announced a continuation of the ban, underlining that it didn’t apply to transit through the country.

Afghan Taliban Detain 18, Including American, on Charges of Preaching Christianity (VOA) Afghanistan’s Taliban have detained 18 staffers, including an American, from a nonprofit group for allegedly preaching Christianity. The Afghan-based International Assistance Mission (IAM) confirmed Friday that Taliban authorities had twice raided its office in central Ghor province this month and taken away the staff. They were taken into custody on charges of “propagating and promoting Christianity” in Afghanistan, a spokesman said. The IAM says on its website that the nonprofit group has been working in Afghanistan only to improve lives and build local health, community development and education capacity. “We are a partnership between the people of Afghanistan and international Christian volunteers, and we have been working together since 1966.”

U.S. and China Expand Global Spy Operations (NYT) As China’s spy balloon drifted across the continental United States in February, American intelligence agencies learned that President Xi Jinping of China had become enraged with senior Chinese military generals. Mr. Xi was not opposed to risky spying operations against the United States, but American intelligence agencies concluded that the People’s Liberation Army had kept Mr. Xi in the dark until the balloon was over the United States. When Mr. Xi learned of the balloon’s trajectory and realized it was derailing planned talks with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, he berated senior generals for failing to tell him that the balloon had gone astray, according to American officials briefed on the intelligence. The episode threw a spotlight on the expanding and highly secretive spy-versus-spy contest between the United States and China. The balloon crisis, a small part of a much larger Chinese espionage effort, reflects a brazen new aggressiveness by Beijing in gathering intelligence on the United States as well as Washington’s growing capabilities to collect its own information on China. The C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency have set up new centers focused on spying on China. U.S. officials have honed their capabilities to intercept electronic communications, including using spy planes off China’s coast. The spy conflict with China is even more expansive than the one that played out between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War, said Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director.

Villagers survived Morocco’s earthquake but lost nearly everything else (Washington Post) By all accounts, life in this village in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains was simple and good, even if it was rarely easy. Families had lived for generations in the small cluster of houses surrounded by olive and nut trees, which generated a third of the village’s income. Money from sons and daughters who grew up and moved to cities provided the rest. When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook the region on Sept. 8, Tiniskt was decimated in a matter of seconds. More than 50 of its 330 residents died—there was no time to wash and bury them properly. Everyone knew each of the dead. But the survivors have each other. They have spent the past week in blue, government-provided tents. On a recent morning, women ladled out milk porridge from communal pots for breakfast. Men parceled out equal portions of donated goods for each family. Boys played soccer in the dirt. Toddlers nestled into adults’ laps—it didn’t matter whose. On Thursday, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI announced an aid package to help people rebuild their homes. The villagers in Tiniskt—used to relying on each other—weren’t waiting around. A local association affixed solar lights to wooden poles to illuminate the central road. A young man collected plastic to construct a shower. Starting over was a daunting task, one man said. But it their only choice.

Adventure tourism (NYT) In 2001, a British man named Tom Morgan decided to host an extreme car race. It would start in Britain and end in what he thought was the world’s most difficult destination for most people to reach: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, more than 5,500 miles away. He called it the Mongol Rally. Participants had to drive the worst car they could find, avoid any planning and have as much fun as possible. Only six cars raced the first year. But interest grew as people began to talk about the rally online. “It’s gone ballistic,” Morgan said. More than 2,000 teams are on the wait-list to join the next Mongol Rally. The growing popularity of the race is one example of interest in trips to remote destinations. Adventure travel companies and insurance providers are reporting record sales this year. Companies say their clients are skipping Bali or Santorini in favor of destinations with less tourism infrastructure. The number of visitors to Antarctica has more than tripled in the last decade. Nepal granted a record number of permits to climb Mount Everest this year. And car rental companies in Mongolia sold out of SUVs this summer.

#headlines #news

[chalkrevelations]

Thousands of members of the United Automobile Workers union went on strike Friday at three plants in three Midwestern states in what was the first strike simultaneously affecting all three Detroit automakers. The union and the companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler — remained deadlocked in negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement when the current contract expired at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday. As the deadline neared, workers started to fan out at the targeted plants — in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio — to protest. At the outset, the strike will idle one plant owned by each automaker, and could force the automakers to halt production at other locations, shaking local economies in factory towns across the Midwest. “We are using a new strategy,” the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said in a video streamed via Facebook on Thursday night. “We are calling on select locals to stand up and go out on strike.” In the 88 years since it was founded, the union has called strikes aimed at a single automaker, and a handful have halted production for several weeks. G.M. plants were idle for 40 days in 2019 before the company and the union agreed on a new contract. The plants designated for walkouts on Friday represent only a small portion of all the unionized factories of G.M., Ford and Stellantis and of those companies’ 150,000 U.A.W. members. This limited strike, however, could hamper the automakers because the sites produce some of their most profitable trucks, such as the Ford Bronco sport utility vehicle and the Chevrolet Colorado pickup. And Mr. Fain has made it clear that the walkout could grow wider if contract accords remain elusive. “This is certainly a different approach, and Fain is talking tough and has got tough proposals,” said Dennis Devaney, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board who is a labor lawyer in Detroit. The affected plants include a G.M. plant in Wentzville, Mo., that makes the GMC Canyon as well as the Colorado, and a Stellantis complex in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the Jeep Gladiator and Wrangler. At Ford’s Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, which makes the Bronco alongside the Ranger pickup, only workers from the assembly area and paint shop will walk out, Mr. Fain said. The G.M. plant employs 3,600 hourly workers, according to the union, and the Stellantis plant 5,800. The union said about 3,300 workers at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant would be affected. The union has demanded a 40 percent wage increase over the next four years, pointing out that the compensation packages for the chief executives of the three companies have increased about that much, on average, over the last four years. Mr. Fain, who took office as union president this year, has also called for cost-of-living adjustments that nudge wages higher in response to inflation, shorter workweeks, improvements to retiree pensions and health care, and job security measures like the ability to strike at plants that are designated for closing. In addition, he wants changes to a wage scale that starts new hires at about $17 an hour and requires eight years for them to climb up to the top U.A.W. wage of $32 hour. So far, the manufacturers have met Mr. Fain about halfway on wages but have opposed almost all of the other demands.

#solidarity #forever

[realtime1960s]

May 8, 1962 - President Kennedy (pictured with Walter Reuther) called on labor today to exercise restraint and responsibility in its bargaining demands. In a speech before the convention of the United Automobile Workers, the President made it clear that he expected labor as well as management to consider the general welfare and the public interest. He said that “no financial sleight of hand” could raise wages and profits faster than productivity without the threat of inflation. Unjustified wage demands, he said, can lead to recurring price and wage demands contrary to the national interest. “This Administration has not undertaken and will not undertake to fix prices and wages in this economy,” he said. The speech was delivered before a generally enthusiastic audience of 2,800 U.A.W. delegates and 8,000 visitors and friends. It was generally interpreted as the President’s answer to those who had wondered if he would talk as firmly to labor as he did to management after the steel price increase last month.

#JFK #1960s #economy #history #politics

[sethshead]

In the US, "class" is often a euphemism for race, and "race" a euphemism for class. In the south, the old plantation and political elites' campaigns against workers rights functioned to maintain a racial hierarchy, and Jim Crow was used to undermine the power of labor. The result was worse conditions for and greater exploitation of all workers, white and black.

While I'm not so far into socialism as was Martin Luther King, he was very much correct that a multiracial coalition of labor activism was the next step in the Civil Rights struggle. Recruiting whites has been harder than expected, since class consciousness is less instinctual than are kinship connections and the implied kinship connection of ethnicity. Nonetheless, unionization in "right to work" states might prove a first step at finally forging that New South in which the color line is less of a political and economic divider. That's why the Volkswagen vote is an important bellwether of long-awaited progress for all Americans, of all races, in all regions.

[marklakshmanan]

#unions deep south

[michaelgabrill]

#NewYorkTimes #NYT

[steadhammond]

Union vote underway at Volkswagen's only US plant - Fox Business

* Union vote underway at Volkswagen's only US plant  Fox Business * Volkswagen workers begin union vote in first test of UAW strength in the South  NPR * Texas, Mississippi, Georgia governors rail union effort at TN VW plant  Tennessean * VW Workers in Tennessee Start Vote on U.A.W., Testing Union Ambitions  The New York Times * Governors of six Southern states warn workers against joining UAW union  The Washington Post

[truck-fump]

<b>Trump</b> Rages at U.A.W. President After Biden Endorsement - The New York Times

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/us/politics/trump-uaw-shawn-fain.html&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw0tyd9Luq9-JFttnQZG6JW6

Trump Rages at U.A.W. President After Biden Endorsement - The New York Times

The provocation for the former president’s comments appeared to be remarks that Shawn Fain, the union’s leader, made on Sunday.

#Uncategorized

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: United Automobile Workers Union Endorses Biden’s Re-Election Bid by The New York Times

By The New York Times Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, said that President Biden had earned the union’s endorsement, when he joined striking members on the picket line last fall in an unprecedented show of support by a sitting president. Published: January 24, 2024 at 07:19PM from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/p38Ad0v via IFTTT

View On WordPress

#antonio velardo #IFTTT #NYT

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Short Week Protested By Workers," Windsor Star. September 27, 1943. Page 3. --- Mass Demonstration Will Be Staged by Employes on Saturday ---- Curtailment of working hours in Windsor plants will be protested next Saturday afternoon by a parade of workers to City Hall Park. Plans for the parade resulted from a meeting of the Windsor Labor Council held last night to discuss the shorter week which many plants have had in effect due to shortages of materials and manpower.

APPROVE ACTION The council approved action taken by a planning committee of the U.A.W.-C.I.O. which has tentatively laid out a mass demonstration protest at which it is expected sitting members of parliament, both federal and provincial, will be asked to speak. A written protest went from the meeting to Hon. C. D. Howe, minister of munitions and supply. It reads: "Windsor Labor Council strenuously protests the curtailment of war production in industry at this time. We demand to know the reason as the war is still in a critical stage."

Further plans for the event will be discussed at a meeting of labor groups tonight in the Chatham street east hall of Local 195, U.A.W.

Thomas Maclean, assistant regional director of the U.A.W., explained today that Ford workers have been on short time for some weeks past. The five-day week, he said, has replaced the former six-day basis. Other plants are similarly affected.

"The war is not won by any means yet," Mr. Maclean explained this morning. "It won't be won by plants going on five days a week. If a shortage of material is the reason then it is high time labor was taken into consultation to remedy the situation.

"The short week is not good for the morale of the workers who are glad to buy Victory Bonds and make their contribution to victory. They can't buy Victory Bonds on short time when they previously made commitments to buy bonds on a full-time basis of employment. Workers who are employed Saturday afternoons are asked not to attend the demonstration until their day's work is completed.

UNIONS REPRESENTED All U. A. W. groups and unions of the Canadian Congress of Labor pa ticipated in last night's meeting.

Priorities Branch of the Department of Munitions and Supply in Windsor had nothing to say for publication on the announcement from the unions, except to state that supplies of vital materials constituted a national problem, not one which affected Windsor alone. No unusual increase has occurred in priority applications in this district, it was explained.

Brass is one of the materials claimed to be difficult to get. Steel, another vital material, must now be applied for through the Toronto office before final disposition is made of applications. Formerly, steel orders were handled without recourse to Toronto.

Among the things which labor groups will ask is that they be given a voice in production problems confronting steel manufacturers. Many labor leaders have insisted since the war began that they have suggestions which would be helpful to producers. They have pointed out that employer-employe councils in the industry could do much to improve the situation.

#windsor #central industrial organization #united auto workers #auto workers #reduction in hours #material shortages #war production #union demands #working class struggle #workers' democracy #workers' councils #industrial relations #canada during world war 2

[tladb]

29 Nov 2023 - NY Times selection - Midjourney (US date)

Reason for why particular images where selected for the Reddit post.. The headlines were chosen for their topicality and image creation possibilities. The /imagine prompt is just the headline with no stylistic guides.

The contact sheet numbers are :

1 2 3 4

U.S Says Indian Official Directed Assassination Plot in New York

'1' a bit too bloody. Any of the others could have been selected. I should not have selected '4' as the 2 'l's in police. This took a reroll as the initial sheet was just individual Sikhs in the street.

U.A.W. Announces Drive to Organize Nonunion Plants

Midjourney really misunderstood 'plants' in this context. '3' with the futuristic factory more interesting than the other post human images.

Apple is Doing Its Part to End Green Bubble Shaming

Midjourney likes the bubbles. '2' selected for the interior. The little caravan reminded me of the ending in the film 'Brazil'

For Palestinian Students Shot In Vermont, a Collision of 2 Worlds

The student in '1' looks a bit happier and there is the stereotypical beard. '4' has the after event grief but the focus should be on students.

As the U.S and the militias back by Iran launch tit-for-tat attacks, officials fear a miscalculation could lead to a larger war

Missing contact sheet

#art #midjourney #ai art #ny times

[craigbrownphd]

Deal With U.A.W. Won’t Put Ford at a Disadvantage, Analysts Say

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/business/ford-uaw-contract.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

#Technology #Tech #FutureTech

[trmpt]