Joseph Szczesny

Labor expert Harley Shaiken says the key to the UAW’s efforts to organize nonunion plants is the success of last fall’s “stand-up” strikes against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

The agreement with the California Air Resources Board represents a break with the past for Stellantis and Fiat Chrysler, its principal unit in North America, which had opposed tighter regulations for light-duty vehicles.

A skilled workforce is needed in the growing electrified-vehicle industry as EV sales quadrupled from 2020 to 2023 and 300 new or expanded battery facilities have been announced.

The new DOE standards represent a victory for blue-collar workers in politically sensitive eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Tesla’s sales have been dropping across Scandinavia where the strike by the company’s Swedish mechanics has picked up broad support from other elements of organized labor, a critical element of Scandinavian culture.

The May vote at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, AL, is the next major test of the UAW’s campaign to organize the 150,000 workers employed by European and Asian carmakers located in the Deep South.

Chairman and CEO Mary Barra says GM is preparing to launch several new vehicles that will bolster its position in China and expects to become profitable again in second-quarter 2024.

State officials say 380 high-wage jobs will be created by the new mine in Wakefield and Ironwood townships in Gogebic County, part of a region that has long supplied the auto industry with raw materials.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says Tesla plans to build “affordable models” that incorporate pieces of a next-generation platform on the production lines in the company’s existing factories in China, Germany, California and Texas.

UAW President Shawn Fain says the tentative agreement is a “major victory for the members who build Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses.”