labor

Suzuki's plant in Manesar, India builds cars for Australia, specifically its Alto small car. Or at least they were building cars before violent worker riots forced the factory to close. The plant has been idled for five weeks as a result of worker violence that led to the death of one manager and ...

Seven Colombian men, all former General Motors employees, have sewn their mouths shut as part of a hunger strike that is now in its third week. The demonstrators, stationed outside the U.S. embassy in Bogota, are protesting their termination from the GM Colmotores plant. As reported by The ...

Fiat spent much of 2011 jousting with Italian labor unions over contracts and plant security. The matter was finally resolved in December when Fiat signed new labor agreements, but a sign of Fiat's take on the matter was its departure from Confindustria, an Italian business group, over concerns ...

Costco has been in the car business for years, offering a few vehicles to members at attractive rates. The warehouse chain also sells tires and discounted fuel. Now Costco wants to take its discounting model right to the dealer service bay. Automotive News reports that Costco has negotiated a ...

Proving that he is nothing if not predictable, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich blamed the United Auto Workers for the loss of American manufacturing jobs at a recent campaign appearance. Automotive News reports that Gingrich lauded the BMW factory in Spartanburg, SC, for being ...

The United Autoworkers Union is struggling – and it is the first to admit it. With its membership dwindling after three decades of workforce cuts by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, the union has pinned its future on organizing one of the transplants. Efforts to convince workers at ...

The United Auto Workers have ratified a new four-year labor agreement with Ford by a two-to-one margin. The deal will see the automaker add 12,000 hourly jobs over the course of the term by bringing some production back into the U.S. from overseas. The agreement will also see Ford invest $16 ...

Maybe it was the Detroit Tigers decisive win in game three of the American League Championship Series, but something put the United Auto Workers and Chrysler negotiators in the mood to compromise last night. The Detroit News is reporting that the union announced a deal just before 7:00 AM ...

Ford and the United Auto Workers have agreed to a tentative labor agreement, according to Automotive News. The pact makes Ford the second domestic automaker to come to reach an accord with the labor union, and the deal covers some 41,000 workers. The agreement is expected to be discussed in ...

According to Automotive News, UAW President Bob King has his eye on organizing labor forces at the manufacturing facilities of German and Asian automakers here in the States. At this point, it's unclear which automaker or which plant the UAW will attempt to organize first, though King has said ...

Technology is your friend, but no one said it's always going to be not creepy nice to look at. The fellow there next to the Ford Fiesta is named "Santos." He's a U.S. Department of Defense creation working ...

GM just ratified an agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers union, and as soon as it did, Chrysler blasted it for being "weak." Chrysler's complaint was that the CAW didn't offer enough concessions to bring production costs into line with market realities. Now Ford has piped up in Chrysler's ...

More than one-fourth of GM's 74,000 hourly employees are going to grab the loot and skedaddle. Earlier this year, UAW President Ron Gettlefinger estimated that 15,000 would put their hands out, but another couple thousand decided to hop on the General's money train. The workers are expected to ...

Buzz Hargrove isn't mincing words about his opinion of Chrysler LLC's strategy. Calling the decision to send the Magnum and Pacifica models out to pasture and cut shifts and jobs at the Brampton, Ontario plant "stupid," Hargrove has said the Canadian Auto Workers aren't interested in the type of ...

GM has been chosen as the lead company in the UAW contract renegotiation talks. That means that the UAW will come to a contractual agreement with GM first, and that contract will be used as the template for negotiations with the other two carmakers, Chrysler and Ford. Of course, that also means ...

The Big Three automakers' massive pension liabilities are well known. To remove that burden, a fund called a VEBA -- voluntary employee beneficiary association -- has been mooted. Automakers would put an agreed upon sum into the VEBA, after which they would be free from further pension obligations. ...

Hyundai's labor union has taken a note from the Teamster playbook and is attempting to strong-arm the automaker. During a ceremony to celebrate the new year, union members ganged up on Hyundai's president and discharged fire extinguishers. The ceremony came screeching to a halt with the president ...

The political alliances in the Motor City have historically been rather black-and-white, with the UAW lining up alongside Democrats and management favoring the Republicans. Yes, one can find exception to these stereotypes, but the above comes as close as one can to describing 40-some years of ...

George Reisman, professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and author of the book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, attempts to answer the question of where would General Motors* be today without the United Auto Workers. Some of his ten conclusions include:#1. GM management could fire ...

The consensus seems to be that Delphi's decision to once again push back its deadline for a motion to cancel the union contract was a healthy sign. The funny thing is, no one seems to be willing to give any solid reasons that convince us to feel the same way. Sure, it gives Delphi, ...