As Big Labor-bought President Joe Biden made his trip to Detroit on Tuesday for a photo-op stop on the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket lines, a worker freedom organization reminded those swept up in the UAW action that there are protections for workers who don’t want to strike.
Nearly two weeks in, the UAW strike against Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers has grown to include 38 parts distribution plants in 21 states and more than 18,000 workers walking off the job. The union is targeting facilities and, at this point, is not calling its 145,000-plus auto workers to strike.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found 58 percent of respondents support the striking workers in general.
“There may not be anyone who agrees with us right now, but I think if this [strike] goes as long as we think it might, there may be people who say, ‘I just can’t afford’ [the strike],’” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Every work stoppage has employees who don’t follow the union line, in this case, demands for a 40 percent wage hike, a 32-hour workweek at full 40-hour pay, and retirement and health plan enhancers. The powerful UAW asserts General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis North America (formerly Chrysler) should be investing a healthy share of its record profits in its workforce. The automakers offered double-digit wage hikes, as high as 20 percent.
While the self-described most pro-union president in history injected himself into Big Labor’s cause, soaring inflation over Biden’s nearly three years in office has battered the earnings of working people.
“We have helped numerous employees, hundreds and hundreds, to navigate their way through something like this,” Mix told The Iowa Star last week on the Simon Conway Show on NewsRadio 1040 WHO in Des Moines. “The longer the strike goes on I think the more we’re going to hear the phones ringing at the foundation for auto worker industry employees to talk to an attorney about ‘how do I make sure I’m not disciplined by the union, fined by the union’” for going back to work during the strike.
The union pays workers $500 in weekly strike assistance, available after the first day of the strike.
Make no mistake, unions can be very punitive to those who go against their work stoppages.
In one case, a Teamsters Chicago local hit several workers with fines as high as $40,000 for not engaging in a “sympathetic strike.” The workers were not voluntary union members. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys worked with the employees to force union officials to drop the fines and refund part of their forced union dues.
The foundation recently released a special legal notice to the thousands of auto workers impacted by the UAW strike.
“This situation raises serious concerns for autoworkers who may believe there is much to lose from a strike and who do not want to abandon their jobs,” the notice states. “Autoworkers have the legal right to rebuff union officials’ strike demands, but it is important for them to know their rights before they do so.”
UAW union officials have no disciplinary power over workers who are not union members, according to labor law. The advisory advises employees who wish to work during a strike to resign their memberships at least one day before returning to work.
“The reason is that union officials can (and often do) levy heavy fines against union members who work during a strike,” the notice states.
Auto worker employees also have the right to cut off all union dues payments in the absence of a monopoly bargaining contract between UAW union officials and company management. The notice encourages employees to seek free legal aid from the Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation if they experience union resistance as they attempt to exercise any of their rights.
“UAW union bosses have a long history of throwing workers under the bus while pursuing their own interests, something made clear by the federal corruption and embezzlement probe that resulted in many of the UAW’s top brass going to prison,” Mix said. “Rank-and-file workers have good reason to wonder if [UAW President] Shawn Fain’s combative stance and apparent eagerness to initiate a strike is really what is best for them, their careers, and their families, or rather is yet another example of UAW bosses looking out for themselves and their personal ambitions to the detriment of those they claim to represent.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “UAW Workers Striking” by UAW International Union.
