UAW strike at Daimler Truck averted at 11th hour

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

April 26, 2024 11:21 PM ET



The United Auto Workers union announced late Friday it had struck a favorable new contract deal for 7,300 Daimler Truck North America workers. The union had threatened a strike starting at midnight when their last contract expired.

A vast majority of the union employees work at plants in North Carolina, where Daimler makes Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses. A smaller number of workers staff parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis. The UAW first unionized workers at Daimler Truck starting in the 1990s.

Like the Big 3 autoworkers who walked off the job last fall, Daimler workers have been demanding significant raises, reviving the "record profits mean record contracts" slogan of last year's strike.

The union said the new contract included raises of at least 25% over four years, as well as cost of living allowances and profit sharing, firsts for Daimler Truck workers since they joined the UAW. Those gains are similar to what the union secured for Big 3 workers last fall. Union workers still need to ratify the deal.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1247632662/daimler-truck-uaw-strike-averted

[Warpy]

1. News flash for anyone who's never been in a union

Unions will do almost anything to avoid a strike. Strikes mean their members have to make do on savings with little income and long hours picketing. Strikes suck, I've been through one. They're reserved for total pigs who won't budge an inch because they want an upgraded private jet or a second house for the kids in Aspen. If there's a strike and there's a way to contribute to the strike fund and you can, do it. Nobody wants to strike, ever.

Unions got a bad rep because things like garbage collecters, transit workers, nurses, and teachers make it inconvenient as hell when they are forced to go on strike by bad management that won't agree to arbitration.