The union hopes that the victory will help them win other campaigns across the South.

Chattanooga VW Workers Win 20% Raise & Profit-Sharing - Brazilian-Owned Meatpacking Plant in Colorado Votes to Strike w/ 99% - BYU Students Protest Border Patrol Recruitment

Chattanooga VW Workers Win 20% Raise & Profit-Sharing - Brazilian-Owned Meatpacking Plant in Colorado Votes to Strike w/ 99% - BYU Students Protest Border Patrol Recruitment

Folks,

Greetings from Rio de Janeiro, where I am getting caught up on some of the union news back in the United States.

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Chattanooga Workers Win 20% Raise, Profit-Sharing, & More

After 13 years of fighting for a union at Volkswagen, UAW union members in Chattanooga announced yesterday that they had reached a tentative agreement on their first union contract.

The UAW says that the contract includes a 20% wage increase over the next 3 years with a top wage of $39-an-hour, the introduction of profit sharing for the first time, the introduction of automatic cost-of-living adjustments, two new paid holidays, and a reduction in healthcare cost.

The contract also includes a $4,000 signing bonus and an annual bonus every year of $2,550.

Workers credit the members’ strong strike authorization vote with getting Volkswagen to improve on the last, best, and final offer it gave the union last year.

“This contract is proof that if you stand up and stick together, you can win a better life,” said Kelcey Smith, a worker in the paint department. “No matter where you live, or where you work, autoworkers deserve a union contract, whether at the Big Three or Volkswagen, from Detroit to Chattanooga. Volkswagen workers are showing the whole country what’s possible.”

The union hopes that the victory will help them win other campaigns across the South.

For more details on the tentative agreement, check out the Chattanooga-Times Free Press.

Brazilian-Owned US Meatpacking House Threatens to Strike

During the 2020 pandemic, 8 workers at Brazilian-owned JBS meatpacking plant in Greely, Colorado died of COVID, leading to wildcat strikes against their employer.

Now, 99% of the workers at the plant voted to strike again.

“This strike authorization is the direct result of JBS’s unlawful and bad-faith conduct,” said Kim Cordova, President of UFCW Local 7. “Over the course of bargaining for a new contract, the union has filed multiple Unfair Labor Practice charges against JBS. These range from regressive bargaining, to threats to withhold a proposed bonus and lump sum pension payment if workers exercise their democratic right to strike, to illegal intimidation and retaliation against workers and bargaining committee members.”

For more on the threatened strike, check out KDVR.

BYU Students Shut Down Border Patrol Recruitment Event

Finally, students at BYU tried to shut down a Border Patrol recruitment event on campus. From the non-profit The Salt Lake Tribune:

“On campus Thursday at Brigham Young University, two recruiters for U.S. Border Patrol staffed a booth at a career fair. Off campus, scores of students took to the streets to protest the immigration agency’s presence at the event.

“There are many immigrants here,” student Annie Walker, one of the demonstration organizers, said. “BYU prides itself on being an international school, of having many languages spoken by the students and having an international reach. And to have CBP there, it really discourages immigrants from actually coming to this campus, and it promotes violence.”

Beryl Peña is among those international students. A Filipina who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, she says the immigration crackdown has become personal for her. She also worries about how CBP’s campus visit reflects on the school.

“It almost feels like [BYU officials] are laughing in our faces after everything that’s been going on,” Peña said. “They still feel that it’s appropriate to have forces like this on campus — for a church [and] for a school that preaches so much about keeping families together.””

For more, check out The Salt Lake Tribune.

Alright yinz, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, story ideas, and comments to melk@paydayreport.com

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