The United Auto Workers has unveiled plans to try to unionise tens of thousands of employees at 13 carmakers with non-union plants in the US, aiming to seize momentum after it won significant concessions from Detroit’s big three manufacturers.
The union wrested big pay rises and other benefits from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis earlier this month after a six-week strike against the companies. On Wednesday the UAW launched a campaign to organise US plants operated by BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo.
The public nature of the campaign is unusual, as organisers ordinarily work in secret to win support from workers at a particular plant. The nearly 150,000 US factory workers employed by the 13 non-union carmakers number roughly the same as the UAW’s 146,000 members inside the Detroit’s Big Three.