The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther. It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, movements of manufacturing, and increased globalization.
The National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada, commonly known as the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), was one of Canada's largest labour unions. In 2013, it merged with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, forming a new union, Unifor. While rooted in Ontario's large auto plants of Windsor, Brampton, Oakville, St. Catharines, and Oshawa, the CAW has expanded and now incorporates workers in almost every sector of the economy. The presidents of the CAW were Bob White (1985-1992), Buzz Hargrove (1992-2008), Ken Lewenza (2008-2013), and Jerry Dias (2013–2022) when the CAW became UNIFOR.
William Julian Usery Jr. was an American labor union activist and government appointee who served as United States secretary of labor in the Ford administration.
Robert White, was a prominent leader in the Canadian trade union and labour movement who was the founding president of the Canadian Auto Workers after leading its separation from its American parent, the United Auto Workers, and then president of the Canadian Labour Congress. Born in Northern Ireland, he emigrated with his family to Canada at age 13, settling in Woodstock, Ontario. White died in 2017 at the age of 81 in Kincardine, Ontario.
Owen Frederick Bieber was an American labor union activist. He was president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) from 1983 to 1995.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is a Canadian trade union which represents 60,000 members across Ontario.
The 2007 General Motors Strike was a labor union strike that lasted three days from September 23 to September 25 of 2007 organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The UAW were engaged in talks with General Motors (GM) to negotiate a new labor contract but were unable to come to an agreement before the deadline. Consequently, 73,000 workers walked out forcing 80 GM facilities in 30 states to cease operations. After the two day strike, the two parties reached an agreement in which the UAW union would assume the responsibility for managing retiree healthcare liabilities. The UAW previously went on strike against General Motors in 1970.
The 99-day Ford strike of 1945 took place in Windsor, Ontario, Canada from September 12, 1945, to December 19, 1945. Although several union demands were contentious issues, the two main demands of the UAW Local 200 were "union shop and checkoff," which became a rallying cry for the strikers. Negotiations for a new contract had spanned 18 months and officially ended with the exodus of Ford workers at 10 a.m. on the morning of September 12. The Strike included picketing and eventually led to a two-day blockade of vehicles surrounding the Ford plant on November 5.
The International Harvester strike of 1979–1980 was a strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) against the International Harvester (IH) company over work rules. The strike began on November 1, 1979, and ended after 172 days on April 20, 1980. As of May 2008, it was the fourth-longest strike of national importance ever held by the UAW.
The 2015 Kohler Strike is the fourth strike in the 142-year-old history of the Kohler Company in Kohler, Wisconsin.
Stephen Francis Lecce is a Canadian politician who has served as the Ontario minister of education since June 20, 2019. A member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, Lecce is the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for King—Vaughan, representing the riding in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since his election in 2018. Before running for office, Lecce worked in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) as the director of media relations during Stephen Harper's tenure.
The 2019 General Motors strike began September 15, 2019, with the walkout of 48,000 United Automobile Workers from some 50 plants in the United States. Demands by workers included increased job security, gateway for temporary workers to become permanent, better pay and retaining healthcare benefits.
The 2021–2022 Columbia University strike was a labor strike involving graduate student workers at Columbia University in New York City. The strike began on March 15, 2021, and ended on May 13, 2021. However, additional strike action commenced on November 3 and lasted until January 7, 2022, when a tentative agreement with the university was reached. The strike was organized by the Graduate Workers of Columbia–United Auto Workers Local 2110 (SWC–UAW), a labor union representing student workers at the university. The goals of the strike were an increase in wages, increased healthcare and childcare coverage, and third-party arbitration in cases of discrimination and sexual harassment.
The 2021 Virginia Volvo Trucks strike was a labor strike involving workers at a Volvo Trucks production facility in Dublin, Virginia, United States. The strike began in April and ended in July with the ratification of a new labor contract.
The 2021 John Deere strike was a labor strike in the United States that began on October 14 and ended on November 17, and involved about 10,000 employees for John Deere, a manufacturer of agricultural and heavy machinery. These employees are members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union, which had been negotiating a new contract with John Deere for several months. On November 17 the workers approved a new 6-year contract officially putting an end to the strike. The strike was John Deere's first in over three decades.
The 1986–1987 John Deere labor dispute, a.k.a. the 1986 John Deere strike and lockout, was a conflict between Deere & Company, more commonly known as John Deere, and its employees. The workers, unionized as part of the United Auto Workers, began selective strikes at three Deere facilities on August 23, 1986. The selective strikes prompted Deere to close the rest of the facilities under the same labor contract as three striking locales, which the UAW, and later The New York Times, called a lockout. On February 1, 1987, workers ratified a tentative agreement which provided stronger benefits to Deere production employees. The conflict was the longest strike ever against Deere, lasting 163 days, or more than five months.
Tesla, Inc. is an American electric car manufacturer which as of January 2023 employs over 127,000 workers across its global operations, none of which are unionized. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has commented negatively on trade unions in relation to Tesla. Despite allegations of high injury rates, long hours, and below-industry pay, efforts to unionize the workforce have been largely unsuccessful.
The 2022 University of California academic workers' strike was a labor strike at all campuses of the University of California (UC) system, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. On November 14, some 48,000 academic workers went on strike for better pay and benefits. Led by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union, it was the largest strike in the United States in 2022; union organizers describe it as the largest strike in all of U.S. higher education.
Shawn Fain is an American labor unionist who has served as president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) since 2023. An electrician by trade, he worked at a Stellantis automotive parts plant in Kokomo, Indiana. He has been a UAW member for 29 years, and held a leadership role in a local chapter of the reform group "UAW Members United".
The 2023 United Auto Workers strike is an ongoing labor strike involving automobile workers in the labor union United Auto Workers (UAW) and the three unionized automakers in the United States—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis. These three automakers' factories combined employ about 145,000 UAW members and produce about 50% of the vehicles manufactured annually in the US. The strike began on September 15, 2023, when the union was unable to reach a deal with the three automakers. It is the first trilateral strike against the three automakers in the union's history.
