The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America is a labor union that represents some 400,000 active employees involved in these three greater sectors of the United States economy, in addition to some 600,000 now-retired members of companies in such fields. Better known as the United Automobile Workers labor union, or UAW for short, the organization has been active in its defense of American employees since 1935.
Although the United Automobile Workers labor union has been active in its pursuit of the defense of American employees’ working conditions throughout its lifetime, its most recent notable attempt at maintaining fair working conditions for its members ended just a few weeks ago. These protests don’t take place too frequently, maybe only once every few years.
The most recent protest – the one that’s mentioned above – began on Sept. 16, 2019, and ended exactly a month later, on Oct. 16th, the date upon which General Motors and the UAW collectively announced that they had agreed on a new contract for all of its employees who were members of the United Automobile Workers labor union.
General Motors employees protected by the UAW originally went on strike because they were concerned about threats posed by the ongoing shift toward manufacturing more electric-powered cars as opposed to their diesel and gasoline counterparts. Electric vehicles produced by General Motors require less labor to be built as opposed to gasoline and diesel GM vehicles, which inevitably will put more and more GM employees out of work.
The long-running leader of the United Automobile Workers labor union, President Gary Jones, is slated to begin a leave of absence starting today, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019, just one day after the labor union’s board of directors voted on whether President Jones should remain the active leader of the organization or not. This vote came as a direct response to an ongoing corruption probe that’s been drilled deeper and deeper into the UAW by the United States federal government.
The personal, private residence of Gary Jones was raided by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service just this August, though he hasn’t been charged with any federal or state-level crimes as a result of the aforementioned corruption probe’s efforts. 12 others, however, have been charged as a part of the ongoing corruption investigation.
