Stellantis Stiffs Workers
The Need for a More Democratic and Fighting Union
With the recent resignation of Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis (the parent company for Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall), on December 1st, 2024, some within the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership seemed to be dragging their feet in pressuring the new Stellantis leadership to follow the 2023 contract stipulations and “Keep The Promise.” This is why, as always, it will be up to the workers to fight for the gains they made in 2023 to be fully recognized and enacted on the shop floor while preparing for the coming battle in 2028.
For a quick refresher on what’s been happening with the workers in the UAW: in 2023, after seven long, difficult, and uncertain weeks of striking, the workers secured an end to the old two-tiered wage system that was created to divide and further exploit the workers. Other wins included a 78% pay increase for those still held in the bottom tier, a guaranteed 23-25% wage increase for the rest of the union workers by the contract’s end, cost of living allowances, $0 premium and deductible healthcare plans for senior workers, five weeks vacation, two weeks paid parental leave, recognition of (and time off for) Juneteenth, and generally improved retirement benefits and security. While recognizing these demands in the new contract was a huge victory for rank-and-file members of the UAW, it was—and still is—up to the workers and their democratically elected leadership to continue the fight for these benefits (and more) moving forward.
A year later, Stellantis was preparing to lay off a large number of their workers nationwide—including here in Ohio—right after the holiday season, potentially forcing thousands out onto the streets in the middle of winter. From delaying the reopening of the Belvidere plant in Illinois to announcing plans to ship the production of the Dodge Durango overseas, Tavares seemed committed to not only failing to implement the reforms required in the 2023 contract, but to completely violating it and previous agreements with the UAW and the workers they represent. With authorizations to strike at UAW Locals 1166, 186, and 230, the new interim executive committee, chaired by John Elkann, had no choice but to pressure Tavares for his resignation.
While some of the wild policies that Tavares implemented were immediately reversed by the board, many were still in place for months following his resignation. The UAW leadership was failing to defend the gains their membership had won for themselves and had resorted to working with the company at the negotiating table rather than being the fighting union they claim to be to their members. The workers deserve and need a more democratic union that will fight for their gains rather than allow management to get away with completely ignoring the 2023 contract won by the rank-and-file workers against the “Big Three” auto manufacturers (GM, Ford, and Stellantis) for months and years after the fact. At the end of the day, it will always be up to the workers and their leadership, both local and international, to work collectively to fight back against the corrupt corporations who currently own the means of production.
The anti-worker policies, instituted by Stellantis, extend to the realm of the climate as well. According to a study done by The Real Urban Emissions Initiative (TRUE Initiative) Stellantis-owned Dodge vehicles emissions are up across North America. Dodge vehicles show consistently higher-than-average carbon monoxide emissions while emerging as the vehicle make with the highest overall emissions across locations, with Nitrogen Oxide (NO), emissions ranging from 17% to 67% higher than the mean for the United States and Canada. Emissions in areas without emission regulation are significantly higher for Dodge, Ford, Nissan, and GM. Meanwhile the Biden administration had chosen to give Stellantis a loan worth up to $7.54 billion to help build two electric vehicle battery plants in Kokomo, Indiana, creating new jobs that the company had planned to keep from the UAW up until Tavares’ resignation.
Here in Ohio, UAW Local 12 President Bruce Baumhower, the UAW Local president at the Toledo Assembly Complex, sought to avoid a strike there despite over 1,000 jobs being potentially lost at that Local. He chose to work with the state unemployment office while continuing to negotiate with the company. Baumhower and UAW leadership focused on securing the laid off workers new jobs and unemployment benefits for the interim rather than fighting for their hard won gains in the streets like many within the Local had been asking for. Unlike other Locals around the country that had held rallies and facilitated strike authorization votes for their membership, Local 12 failed to respond to the reality that companies like Stellantis and the Big Three auto manufacturers have created. Capitalists like Tavares and Elkann can not and will not defend the workers and their jobs—that is the union and its democratically elected leaderships’ job!
Baumhower also opted to continue the working relationship with management, saying that what the union needed was for rank-and-file workers to continue making as much inventory for the company as possible while standing in solidarity during the negotiations with Stellantis and the Big Three to “keep the promise.” This was not, and is not, enough for many of the workers on the shop floor whose jobs and livelihoods are at risk. Why must the workers “keep the promise” of creating “inventory” (commodities) for the companies to turn around and sell while the companies get to go months and years without fulfilling their end of the “promise” to the workers? It’s absurd! Already, workers in Toledo are getting frustrated with the lack of support, action, and direction they’re being given from their leadership. Workers on the ground want to feel heard by their union leadership, and the lack of democratic input and collective solidarity are getting in the way of that. Hosting only a once monthly meeting for the union as a whole, one individual plant meeting a month, and then a recent impromptu meeting when Shawn Fain visited Toledo to talk to workers there, is not sufficient to provide consistent spaces for membership to voice concerns and come to solutions collectively. Rather, they chose to deal with each worker individually, breaking the very same solidarity they ask their membership to uphold in these times of uncertainty.
Other Locals, like Local 863 here in the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan area that represents workers primarily at the Ford Sharonville Transmission Plant, can at least organize weekly Red Shirt Wednesdays, Trunk-or-Treating, Football Tailgates, etc., and they aren’t even the ones being shafted by Stellantis. This is because they know that, while they won some gains against the Big Three with the stand up strike movement of 2023, they have to remain vigilant and committed if they want to see those gains realized by these corrupt corporations. Baumhower has failed to adapt to the attitude of his Local in his over 30 year-tenure, preferring to continue down the current opportunist path. Even though Local 12 is not unique in having these issues, as we’ve seen at other Locals around the country no matter the trade, Local 12’s leadership can and must hold more meetings with its membership to hear the valid complaints and work collectively with them to fight back against the cutting of hours and union jobs in Toledo.
We’ve already seen the success of rallies and strike authorizations from the UAW international membership back in October to pressure Tavares’ resignation as well as the stand up strike movement of 2023. These successes were thanks to the members on the ground, first and foremost, but also its first ever directly elected leadership in Shawn Fain and the executive board. Now, it is up to that same membership, Local, national, and international leadership to fight back against Stellantis and the Big Three until they recognize and enact the FULL 2023 contract and return all of their union workers to the hours they negotiated for.
Unfortunately, we have already seen signs from Fain and others in union leadership of preferring to work with the incoming Trump administration and corporate leadership of these companies rather than practicing the same solidarity and militancy they expect from the workers they represent. While the UAW negotiating team was successful in getting a deal with Stellantis to resume production and reopening of plants, Shawn Fain admitted, “While this news reaffirms the company’s commitment to UAW members, there is more work to do in reversing the damage done by Carlos Tavares. We still have thousands of our union sisters and brothers laid off due to the gross mismanagement under Tavares.” The company’s commitment to UAW members? It’s obvious to everyone, especially the workers on the factory floor that the company’s only commitment is to profit. That’s why they never had and never will have an interest in the union workers who are out on the streets now looking for new, non-union, jobs. These grievances weren’t even levied at the company, partly due to it being completely legal in America and Ohio especially, for companies to do this. If Fain, Baumhower, and these other class-collaborationist cowards won’t step up for their members in their hour of need, it’s up to the workers to demand new representatives.
Luckily, we’ve already seen the success of groups within the UAW like Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) in organizing workers democratically and working collectively to fight against the bosses’ power and build collective strength and solidarity within the UAW. By providing the workers with both educational and agitational resources, the UAWD is taking strides in preparing the workers of their various locals to fight back in 2025 and beyond. Ultimately, it’ll be on the rank-and-file workers to stand up and fight against the various unsafe practices in the workplace as well as corruption in management and Union leadership.
It’s the workers who create value for the company, and it’s union workers who are able to maintain standards and keep their fellow workers safe in the pursuit of that value. By building structures of collective power, union workers stand at the forefront of the war against the bosses. Workers with a sense of pride in their workplace and the people they work with, who share a sense of trust with their leadership, can achieve so much. Capitalists, like Tavares and Elkann, are no friend to the workers no matter what lies they spew! Their only care in the world is to keep the extra value created from the commodities the workers have made and hoard it for themselves or spend it in creating new business operations–business operations that they then turn around and make non-union. These capitalists are the enemy of the workers, and these contracts are merely the ceasefires of class struggle. If the enemy doesn’t respect the ceasefire, you must resume hostilities! Meanwhile, it’s the workers, especially workers of color, who inevitably pay the price of this stolen value in both bodily harm and an inability to pay their bills. They are also the ones who will gain the most from a union that will listen, represent, and fight for them. The eight-hour work-day, the five-day workweek, the ability to use the stand-up strike method utilized in 2023, and so much more were won by labor unions in their persistent struggle against the bosses. Only by organizing collectively can the working class fight for better working conditions and better lives, and eventually seize power for themselves and bring an end to capitalist exploitation.
We have nothing to lose but our chains!
We have a world to win!
Power to the workers, and power to the worker’s democracy!