UAW President Sees Auto Industry’s Future Through Rose-Colored Glasses

You gotta applaud the constructive mindset of UAW Worldwide President Ray Curry, the guy who took more than the top rated union career past June with the retirement of Rory Gamble soon after a collection of scandals, federal probes of bribery and embezzlement, and the arrest and conviction of a number of executives.

Curry also has experienced to offer with a pandemic and provide chain shortages resulting in temporary plant closures and layoffs, and is witnessing the changeover of the automobile field from traditional employment making automobiles with inner combustion engines to a foreseeable future powered by electric vehicles, in some scenarios by startups.

With a level voice and easy method, Curry spent an hour answering media questions at an Automotive Push Association celebration, under no circumstances supplying into the dark forces at bay.

Alternatively, the international president painted a photo of option. The electrical vehicle and battery plant announcements that are coming rapid and furious are options to increase the membership foundation, even as an growing range of new careers are staying created in southern states much less amenable to arranging. The UAW is escalating its finances for organizing strategies with so several workplaces to deal with.

In this article is his astonishingly rosy consider on a range of challenges:

Battery crops are normally joint ventures. Certainly, that places them outside the house traditional automaker agreements, but Curry sees this new know-how as the purely natural extension of current automaking and therefore part of the union’s purview. These new crops may possibly not be structured proper out of the box, but all over again Curry sees it as an place of prospect. Training will be important. The latest pattern to insource far more core parts, this kind of as electric motors, inverters, and batteries, is a prospect to pull non-unionized suppliers into the fold when reducing the risk of provide chain disruptions and sections delays.

Fears the new plants will mean fewer positions? Curry details to the GM plant in Detroit-Hamtramck that had 1,100 employees right up until it went down for retooling to make EVs. Reinvented as Manufacturing facility Zero, it will employ 2,200.

The union chief is also bullish on the current Administration and endeavours to provide incentives to invest in EVs and financial investment in the charging infrastructure to assistance them. Moves by states like California or international locations like Canada that purpose for 100 percent EV income by 2035 are beneficial by delivering a timeline.

And what about the union’s tarnished status following so lots of tales and convictions of corruption? Bad apples are long gone, reforms are in put, and the union is making an attempt to be transparent with the membership and move on.

Upcoming yr is a contract calendar year, with the present Big Three agreements expiring September 14, 2023. And for the 1st time in lots of years, the Canadian agreements in between Unifor (formerly CAW) and the Detroit automakers will also expire in 2023. Curry suggests he does not fear automakers seeking to whipsaw the two unions or produce bidding wars for investment decision and new product simply because the Canadian contracts expire in the spring, 6 months in advance of the UAW deadline.

As for the in general vehicle sector, Curry sees it as sturdy, with history income, substantial demand, and increasing stock.