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      United Auto Workers Usher In New Era of Leadership

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      Shawn Fain, who ousted the incumbent president, is presiding over a convention to chart the union’s approach in contract talks this year.The United Auto Workers union has opened a new chapter in its storied history, and it may end up looking a lot like its combative past.Over the weekend, the 88-year-old union confirmed that an outsider, Shawn Fain, had prevailed in a hotly contested election for president, ousting the incumbent. An electrician whose father and grandfathers were also U.A.W. members, Mr. Fain has promised to take a tough negotiating line for increased wages in contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.“It is a new day for the U.A.W.,” Mr. Fain said on Monday at the start of a three-day convention, where hundreds of delegates will hammer out priorities and strategies for the contract talks that will formally open this summer.“We are here to come together for the war against our one and only true enemy — the multibillion-dollar corporations and employers who refuse to give our members their fair share,” Mr. Fain said.He opened his address by shouting, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” — drawing out the final word in the style of the famed boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer.Mr. Fain, 54, won by a razor-thin margin after prolonged vote-counting and more than two weeks of wrangling over some 1,600 challenged ballots. With the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes — 483 more than the incumbent, Ray Curry. Mr. Fain was declared the victor, and Mr. Curry conceded, when the margin exceeded the number of ballots still under challenge.The election was the first in the U.A.W.’s history in which the president and the union’s other senior executives were chosen through direct balloting of members. In the past, the leadership was chosen by delegates, a system in which favors and favoritism played a heavy role.T-shirts on display at the convention showed support for the union faction led by Mr. Fain. Rebecca Cook/ReutersThe democratic election had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the U.A.W.’s efforts to carry out anti-corruption reforms. The monitor was appointed as part of a 2021 settlement of a federal investigation that found that top union officials had embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers, and had spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials, including two former presidents, pleaded guilty.Mr. Curry was not a target of the corruption investigation but many members saw him as linked to the establishment that had been running the union for years.Mr. Fain takes office along with several other outsiders running on his slate who were elected to senior posts by convincing margins. They won support from members who were angered over the corruption scandals and wanted an executive team that would push harder for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the automaker formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A.Decades ago, the U.A.W. had more than 1.5 million members and the power to influence presidential elections and demand steady increases in wages and benefits. When the manufacturers resisted, it called strikes that shut down a large part of the industry. Over the years, the U.A.W.’s gains helped lift wages and living standards for a broad swath of manufacturing workers across the United States.But its influence declined as the Detroit automakers struggled. When G.M. and Chrysler were reorganized in bankruptcy court in 2009, the union made concessions on wages and benefits that it has not won back, and it has had to weather the closing of dozens of plants. It now has about 400,000 members.The contract talks come after years in which G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been reporting record results and have paid significant sums to workers in profit-sharing bonuses. In 2022, for example, G.M. made a profit of $9.9 billion and paid a bonus of $12,750 to each of its U.A.W. workers.Members want Mr. Fain to fight for wage increases to offset inflation, an end to a two-tier wage system that pays newer workers significantly less than veterans and assurances that new plants will be built in the United States rather than abroad.At the convention, the rank and file appeared to back Mr. Fain, despite his narrow margin of victory.“I’m ready to strike,” said Romaine McKinney III, an electrician at a Stellantis stamping plant in Warren, Mich. “We have to show these companies that we are ready to walk out.”Jamonty Washington, a worker at a Detroit plant where Stellantis makes Jeeps, said he started his job 12 years ago making just under $16 an hour — working next to a colleague making $31 an hour. He has worked his way up to $30 an hour, he said, but thinks the union has to fight to eliminate such differences in pay.“Equal pay for equal work,” he said. “It’s time for this union to get back to being militant — not asking but demanding.” More

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      in Elections

      President Is Ousted in United Auto Workers Election

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      Shawn Fain, an insurgent, edged Ray Curry after calling for a harder line in contract talks. The union has been dogged by corruption scandals.An insurgent candidate has won the presidency of the United Auto Workers union, potentially setting the organization on a more confrontational path as it heads into contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.Shawn Fain, a 54-year-old electrician who has been a member of the union for almost three decades, defeated the incumbent, Ray Curry, after a monthslong election battle in which Mr. Fain’s allies won seats across the union’s executive board.Mr. Fain claimed victory on Saturday, and Mr. Curry conceded, as a court-appointed election monitor neared the end of the vote count.Mr. Curry, a 57-year-old former assembly line worker with a master’s degree in business administration, was appointed president in 2021 after a broad federal investigation into a series of corruption scandals. He had carried out a number of reforms but ultimately was seen by many members as not enough of a break with previous presidents and executives linked to wrongdoing.Ray Curry was appointed president of the United Auto Workers in 2021.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressWith the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes, or 50.2 percent, and Mr. Curry had 68,976, according to an unofficial tally. The count had gone on for weeks, prolonged by the inspection of challenged ballots.Mr. Curry said Mr. Fain would be sworn in on Sunday and would preside over a convention to hammer out plans for the contract talks.The vote was a runoff after a contest in November in which Mr. Curry collected about 600 more votes than Mr. Fain but neither man reached the 50 percent threshold to be declared the winner.“The winds of change run strongly through this election,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It defines the direction of the U.A.W. going forward.”Mr. Fain said he intended to be more confrontational in contract negotiations, a position that appealed to members after years of concessions on wages and benefits and following corruption scandals that ended with two former presidents serving time in prison.“This is the end of company unionism, where the companies and the union work together in a friendly way, because it hasn’t been good for our members,” he said in an interview as the vote count neared completion. “These companies have enjoyed record profits for a decade, and our workers are still regressing and struggling to get by.”Insurgents aligned with him won a majority of offices on the union’s international executive board — an outcome widely seen as reflecting the members’ desire for significant change at the top of the union.But Mr. Fain and the new administration have little experience in running the union’s operations.It was the first election open to all members of the union, and had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the union’s efforts to wipe out corruption. Previously, the union’s presidents and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, in which the result was often determined by favors and favoritism and did not always reflect the sentiments of rank-and-file workers.“I knew our members were fed up,” Mr. Fain said. “It was just a matter of whether they were willing to vote for change, because they’ve never been able to do that before.”The shake-up comes as the U.A.W. is about to start talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis on four-year labor contracts. The talks come as the automakers are again earning significant profits. G.M. reported profits of $9.9 billion for 2022. Ford reported a loss, but its North American operation remains its main profit generator. Stellantis, which was formed by a merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA in 2021, made 17 billion euros, with a large share coming from North America.It also occurs as the automakers are making the transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones, which have fewer moving parts and require less labor.“The union is in the midst of a most important transition since the introduction of the assembly line with the move toward electric vehicles, and that could result in the loss of a lot of automotive jobs,” Professor Shaiken said. “How the new leadership navigates that will impact the U.A.W. and the labor movement.”For decades after its founding in 1935, the U.A.W. had the power to influence presidential elections and consistently won middle-class wages and benefits that set the standard for workers in many industries across the country. At its peak, in 1979, it had 1.5 million members.But the U.A.W.’s membership and influence steadily declined as the Detroit automakers faced increasing competition from Toyota and other foreign automakers that were building nonunion plants across the South. As those rivals gained a greater foothold, the American companies reduced their payrolls and shut factories.The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler — which is now part of Stellantis — forced the union into major concessions, including a wage system that left newcomers earning substantially less than veteran workers.While diminished, the U.A.W. still has influence. “The union can still turn out voters in critical states like Michigan and Ohio and other states that can determine a presidential election,” Professor Shaiken said.The U.A.W. now has about 400,000 active members, including college teaching assistants and casino workers as well as auto manufacturing workers. Both active members and the union’s 600,000 retirees were eligible to vote in the elections. For the last several years the U.A.W. has been reeling from a federal corruption investigation that eventually found a number of schemes in which senior officials embezzled millions of dollars from union coffers. They spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.In total, federal investigators found that $1.5 million had been siphoned from membership dues, and $3.5 million from union training centers. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty, and two former presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, were sentenced to prison. Each was released after serving nine months.As part of a consent decree settling the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed an outside monitor to oversee the implementation of democratic and transparency reforms. One of the mandated reforms was a one-person-one-vote election. More

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      in US Politics

      Youngstown’s hopes for reinvention fade as electric truck firm sputters

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      It’s less than a year since Lordstown Motors was touted as the future for the Youngstown, Ohio, the once thriving steel and manufacturing city that has struggled to reinvent itself in the post-industrial age.The company and its Endurance all-electric pickup truck were seen as saviors for Youngstown after General Motors pulled the plug on its nearby Lordstown plant. “It’s booming now. It’s absolutely booming,” said Donald Trump in September, during an unveiling of the Endurance truck at the White House.Now those hopes are fading as Lordstown Motors faces financial difficulties that have locals worried, once again, about the region’s financial future.“It’s a very sad moment in the history of Youngstown. It seems every five years that hope is just over the horizon and somebody just closes it up and it disappears,” said Bob Hagan, who represented the Youngstown area for nearly three decades in the Ohio state legislature as an assembly representative and state senator.General Motors announced plans to shut down five factories in North America in November 2018, including its plant in Lordstown, which employed 1,600 workers and had operated for 52 years. The number of employees had steeply declined since the early 1990s, when more than 10,000 workers were employed at the plant.In March 2019, the last Chevy Cruze rolled off the assembly line as the plant ceased operations, leaving hundreds of workers forced to retire, transfer to a different GM plant elsewhere in the US, or find other work.The closure was devastating for residents in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, as the area has steadily declined from outsourcing and plant closures over the past few decades in the automotive, manufacturing, and steel industries.General Motors sold the plant to Lordstown Motors for $20m in 2019, and loaned the company $40m.But hope for a bright electric future soon faded. Since its purchase of the plant, Lordstown Motors has experienced financial and developmental difficulties. The company recently gave a tour of the facility to reporters, analysts and other visitors amid a turmoil of conflicting statements on its outlook, the resignations of its CEO and CFO, and a statement to securities regulators that the company did not have enough funds to start production.Hagan said these travails are just the latest setback for an area that has taken many hard knocks. Over the past several decades, steel mills and manufacturing plants have shuttered amid broken promises. He fears Lordstown Motors may prove another corporation that came into the area with high hopes and lofty promises – only to let the community down.“They’re rearranging the chairs on the Titanic,” he said.The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened an inquiry into Lordstown Motors over statements it has made about orders in the wake of a report from short-seller Hindenburg Research that accused Lordstown Motors of misrepresenting orders to raise capital. Five Lordstown Motors executives sold more than $8m in stocks in February 2021, ahead of the company’s financial reporting results and before the company’s financial problems were publicly disclosed.“If you talk to the vast majority of us, we are not surprised by all the issues with Lordstown Motors,” said Timothy O’Hara, former president of United Auto Workers local 1112, the union which represented GM Lordstown employees. He worked at the plant for 41 years before retiring.“Lordstown Motors has been a shaky situation from the beginning. For the economy of the Mahoning Valley I hope it succeeds – but I’m not holding my breath.”The Lordstown Motors plant currently has about 600 employees, and production is projected to begin at the end of September. But it faces some huge hurdles. In a statement filed with the SEC, the company said its success hinges on “its ability to complete the development of its electric vehicles, obtain regulatory approval, begin commercial scale production and launch the sale of such vehicles” – all as it seeks additional financing before it’s projected to run out of funds by May next year.Elected officials have bet heavily on the success of Lordstown Motors in the area. In December, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved a state tax credit for the company estimated to save $20m in payroll taxes, based on its promise to create 1,570 full-time jobs. Ohio’s private economic development agency, JobsOhio, has pledged $4.5m in grants to Lordstown Motors. In April last year, the company received more than $1m through a federal pandemic loan to retain 42 jobs.But Hagan believes the money may not be enough and, once again, it will be the people of Youngstown who pay the price.“Tax dollars are being used to lure people into our community. We have to have elected officials be more vigilant on how organizations are taking money and make sure they deliver,” he said. More

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      How a Very Weird Quirk Might Let Michigan Republicans Limit Voting Rights

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      State Republicans are pushing a voting law that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she will veto. But a rarely used option for a voter-driven petition could allow the G.O.P. to circumvent her veto.At first glance, the partisan battle over voting rights in Michigan appears similar to that of many other states: The Republican-led Legislature, spurred by former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about election fraud, has introduced a rash of proposals to restrict voting access, angering Democrats, who are fighting back.But plenty of twists and turns are looming as Michigan’s State Senate prepares to hold hearings on a package of voting bills beginning Wednesday. Unlike Georgia, Florida and Texas, which have also moved to limit voting access, Michigan has a Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who said last month she would veto any bill imposing new restrictions. But unlike in other states with divided governments, Michigan’s Constitution offers Republicans a rarely used option for circumventing Ms. Whitmer’s veto.Last month, the state’s Republican chairman told activists that he aimed to do just that — usher new voting restrictions into law using a voter-driven petition process that would bypass the governor’s veto pen.In response, Michigan Democrats and voting rights activists are contemplating a competing petition drive, while also scrambling to round up corporate opposition to the bills; they are hoping to avoid a replay of what happened in Georgia, where the state’s leading businesses didn’t weigh in against new voting rules until after they were signed into law.The maneuvering by both parties has turned Michigan into a test case of how states with divided government will deal with voting laws, and how Republicans in state legislatures are willing to use any administrative tool at their disposal to advance Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud and pursue measures that could disenfranchise many voters. The proposal puts new restrictions on how election officials can distribute absentee ballots and how voters can cast them, limiting the use of drop boxes, for example. “These bills contain some of the most outlandish voter suppression ideas that Michigan has ever seen,” said State Senator Paul Wojno, the lone Democrat on the Michigan Senate’s elections committee. “We’ll find out if what was adopted in Georgia may have backfired, causing legislation like this to be put under a bigger microscope.”Michigan’s two largest companies, the iconic automakers Ford and General Motors, have not weighed in on the proposals specific to the state. But both have indicated they opposed changes to Michigan’s election laws that would make voting harder — an apparent effort to get ahead of the issue, rather that come under pressure after laws are passed, as happened to two big Georgia-based companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines.On Tuesday, GM posted a statement calling on the state legislature to ensure that any new voting law protect “the right for all eligible voters to have their voices included in a fair, free and equitable manner.’’“Anything less falls short of our inclusion and social justice goals,’’ it added, an apparent shot across the bow of G.O.P. lawmakers.The Republican push to tighten Michigan’s election laws comes as the state faces a major spike in coronavirus cases, with the number nearing the peak in late December. Ms. Whitmer, who declined to be interviewed, on Friday called for a two-week pause in youth sports, in-person school and indoor dining and asked President Biden for more vaccine. Republican opposition to Ms. Whitmer in Michigan has intensified during the pandemic.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said last month she would veto any bill imposing new restrictions on voting.Matthew Hatcher/Getty ImagesMichigan is one of just nine states that allow voters to petition lawmakers to take up a piece of legislation; if passed, the law is not subject to a governor’s veto. If the Legislature does not pass the bill within 40 days of receiving it, the measure goes before voters on the next statewide ballot. It is a rarely used procedure: Lawmakers have passed only nine voter-initiated bills since 1963, according to the state Bureau of Elections.But last month, Ron Weiser, the state’s Republican Party chairman, told supporters in a video reported on by The Detroit News that the state party planned to subsidize a petition drive to cut Ms. Whitmer out of the lawmaking process.To do so would require 340,047 voter signatures, or 10 percent of the vote in the last governor’s election. Mr. Weiser said that the signatures would be gathered through county committees with party funding. So far, the signature gathering has not begun, nor has the secretary of state’s office received a proposed bill needed to start a petition drive, as required by law.A spokesman for the state G.O.P., Ted Goodman, said the party could easily gather the needed signatures for the initiative if Ms. Whitmer vetoes a bill that emerges from the Legislature. “We’re confident we can ensure election integrity reforms ahead of the 2022 elections,’’ Mr. Goodman said.A preview of what might be in a voter-initiated bill was suggested by a package of 39 bills to change the state’s voting laws that Republicans in the State Senate introduced on March 24. Democrats denounced most of the proposals.The package would prohibit the secretary of state from mailing unsolicited applications for absentee ballots to voters, require voters to mail in a photocopied or scanned ID to receive an absentee ballot, and restrict the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, among other rule changes. These measures would roll back some of the expanded access to absentee ballots that Michigan voters approved, by a two-to-one margin, in a 2018 vote to amend the Constitution.The bills also include some provisions to make voting easier, such as adding an extra day of early voting on a Saturday and allowing 16-year-olds to preregister to vote.But the bulk of proposed changes would impose new hurdles to absentee voting, after Mr. Trump and Michigan Republicans last year spread misinformation about wide fraud and “irregularities” in the use of mail ballots. They particularly targeted Detroit, the state’s largest city, which has a majority-Black population.Ron Weiser, left, Michigan’s Republican Party chairman, with Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman. Mr. Weiser said the state party planned to subsidize a petition drive to collect the signatures necessary to circumvent a veto by the governor.David Guralnick/Detroit News, via Associated PressIn November’s election, 3.3 million absentee ballots were cast in the midst of a pandemic, out of 5.5 million total votes. Citing scores of audits, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, called the election one of the most secure in Michigan history. Ms. Benson said only 15,300 absentee ballots were rejected, less than 0.5 percent, for reasons such as arriving too late. Mr. Biden carried Michigan by 154,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points.Ms. Benson refused to appear last week before a legislative hearing on the 2020 election, saying it could “further the lies” that undermine faith in voting. The secretary of state has proposed her own election changes, including making Election Day a holiday and allowing clerks two weeks before that date to open absentee ballots and begin processing them; the goal is to shorten the wait for results — one factor that fed misinformation about the 2020 outcome.Despite the courts’ near-universal rejection of claims of fraud, including the Michigan Supreme Court, Ruth Johnson, a Republican state senator and former secretary of state, said there was a “lot of gaming of the system.”“There was more cheating last year in an election than I’ve ever seen in Michigan,” said Ms. Johnson, who is chairwoman of the State Senate’s elections committee.Ms. Johnson, who represents a district in the Detroit suburb of Oakland County, said the suite of Republican voting bills would receive a fair hearing before her committee and said there was “no predetermined outcome” about which ones would be advanced to the full Senate.Michigan Democrats are working under the presumption that they will have to fight off both the legislative proposals and a major petition drive.Lavora Barnes, the party chairwoman, said she was weighing plans that include a competing petition drive and tailing Republican signature gatherers to speak directly to voters and counter G.O.P. claims. She said Democrats might also argue in court that the new voting legislation violates the state Constitution.“We will have our grass-roots folks on the ground making sure folks are educated about what they are signing,” Ms. Barnes said. “I’m imagining a world where they are standing out in front of folks’ grocery stories and we are actively communicating on the ground during that entire process.”Republicans’ proposed measures would roll back some of the expanded access to absentee ballots that Michigan voters approved by a two-to-one margin in 2018.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York TimesNancy Wang, the executive director of a group called Voters Not Politicians, which drove support for the 2018 constitutional amendment, said she was preparing a campaign to pressure Michigan corporations to oppose any new restrictions on voting before a law is passed.“We’re making it known what is happening and what the impact would be if these bills were to pass,” Ms. Wang said. “We’re trying to get the same result they had in Georgia, but earlier.”Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, said last Friday that the company supports “initiatives that promote equitable access and do not disproportionately affect any segment of the population.’’ Michigan Democrats said the prospect of a citizen initiative to bypass the normal lawmaking process would serve to allow a fraction of the state’s white population to disenfranchise Black voters.“It feels almost criminal to me,’’ said Sarah Anthony, a state representative from Lansing. “As an African-American woman who has worked for years now to expand the right to vote, to mobilize and educate people about why it’s so important to vote, and to lower barriers to people, and now be in the Legislature and see these crafty ways that folks are trying to strip us of the right to vote, words can’t describe it.’’ More

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      in US Politics

      ‘I regret voting for him': Ohioans hit by GM plant closure reflect on Trump

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      Before Covid-19 hit, Trisha Amato spent her weekdays behind a modest, ebony-colored desk, running the “transition center” that helps laid-off General Motors workers pick up the shards of their lives. GM announced it was closing its mammoth plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in November 2018 and ever since Amato has been ladling out advice to the 1,700 laid-off workers on such matters as how to obtain jobless benefits and how to qualify for government assistance to pay for college courses.The GM plant, the size of more than 100 football fields, had long been the heart of Lordstown – as recently as 2016, it employed 4,500 workers, and in its 53-year history, it produced 16m vehicles. Built alongside I-80, the hulking plant has long been a monument to America’s industrial might, or perhaps one should say its fading industrial might.Deep-voiced, with long, auburn hair and broad shoulders – she, too, had worked at the plant – Amato has problems of her own, saying that she can no longer afford health insurance for herself and her two daughters on her transition center salary. Amato, who is divorced, felt betrayed when GM said it would shut the plant – the company had received $60m in state subsidies, and had promised in return to keep the plant open through 2027.Many of the GM workers were also angry at Donald Trump. During the 2016 campaign, he repeatedly proclaimed that he would make American manufacturing great again and would bring back jobs that had gone overseas. That message resonated in Lordstown and nearby Youngstown, part of the Mahoning Valley area that has been dragged down for decades by one factory and steel mill closing after another. Trump’s repeated promise to bring back factory jobs played well not only in Ohio, but also in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, helping win over many blue-collar voters, who were key to his narrow victories in those states. Blue-collar workers in those states could again play a decisive role in this year’s election, with many still supporting Trump, but some souring on him – perhaps enough to flip those states to Joe Biden.In July 2017, Trump spoke in Youngstown and told the crowd that on his way in from the airport, he had seen the carcasses of too many factories and mills. He bemoaned Ohio’s loss of manufacturing jobs, but then boldly assured the crowd: “They’re all coming back!” He next told his audience, many of them workers worried about plant closings: “Don’t move! Don’t sell your house!” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump invokes production law to compel GM to supply ventilators

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      President shifted position on Defense Production Act after criticism for playing down equipment shortage amid pandemic Coronavirus – live US updates Live global updates See all our coronavirus coverage Donald Trump during a briefing at the White House in Washington DC, on 26 March. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/EPA Donald Trump has bowed to overwhelming pressure and […] More