Auto workers at Volvo’s truck plant in southwest Virginia have just voted down a concessionary contract by 90 percent—for the second time. Now they’re back on strike.

“The International union has been down here twice for town halls,” said Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2069 member Rhonda Sisk. “Each time we say ‘take it back, it’s garbage,’ and they just say they think it’s a good contract, but they don’t say why.”

The first vote came May 16, after a two-week strike that began April 17. Many workers were dismayed when their union sent them back to work and said they would be told later what had been bargained. When terms were finally revealed, they were outraged.

Apparently undeterred by the resounding rejection, union officials brought back a second agreement just four days later that workers described as nearly identical to the first. They voted no June 6, and officials announced the resumption of the strike at noon today.

“They made a billion-dollar profit off our labor and we got nothing,” said Sisk, a three-year assembler in the chassis department.

GET RID OF TWO-TIER

The 2,900 members had voted by 98 percent to authorize the first strike. Though union officials were close-mouthed about bargaining goals, rank and filers wanted to get rid of the two-tier wage system they had worked under for years.

The strike was solid, shutting down the largest Volvo truck manufacturing facility in the world.

It wasn’t easy finding out the first tentative agreement’s contents. A “highlights” pamphlet was distributed, but unlike the UAW’s practice at the Big 3 automakers, the entire proposed agreement was not put online. Workers could get a copy at the union hall, and soon the thick document was brought into the plant and copied.

One of the biggest insults in the first agreement, according to Sisk, was raising the cost of health care. Out-of-pocket costs would rise by the end of the contract to $2,000 a year, with a $4,000 deductible.

Under the current contract, workers are divided into “core”—those with more than 15 years’ seniority—and “competitive.” New hires start at $16.77 and get a dollar more each year for five years, up to a max of $21.77—far less than the core top pay of $30.02. Under the rejected agreement, though there are raises, “tiers are there to stay,” Sisk said. New hires in one assembler classification, for example, would get to $27 by 2026.

Language would have allowed union officials to agree to an unspecified Alternative Work Schedule such as “four 10-hour days, alternate shift operations, or other alternate schedules based on the needs of the business.” Time-and-a-half pay over eight hours in a day would be gone. These alternative schedules are popular with management at the Big 3 automakers—and very unpopular with many auto workers.

Another clause would have made workers take 40 hours of vacation in order to use FMLA.

A worker in the second-tier, “competitive” classification, who asked that his name not be used, said he wants a contract like the UAW’s pact at Mack Trucks (also owned by Volvo) in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Maryland, which “is like 40 times better.” That contract was won after a strike in fall 2019. He wants to see all workers reach top pay after three years of work. (In the 1970s, before the era of concessions began, new hires reached top pay after 90 days.)

HOW THEY REJECTED

A private Facebook group with 1,900 members was part of angry members’ organizing but, Sisk said, “most of it was just sitting and talking with people who had been there longer than we had.” There were no leaflets; members were forbidden to campaign during the vote at the union hall (where there was a police presence all day), nor were they allowed to observe the vote count.

One high-seniority worker posted a video of himself sitting on a toilet. He has cut up the tentative agreement and taped it around a toilet paper roll. A voice asks, “Dad, what do you think of the contract?” Another worker posted a picture of people burning the tentative agreement.

International officials tried to sell the first contract. “We thought Ray Curry would be there, who negotiated our contract,” Sisk said, “but he did not show up.” Curry is the UAW Secretary-Treasurer and head of the Heavy Truck Department; insiders say he will head the union’s “Administration Caucus” ticket when officers are elected next year.

At a contract information meeting, Dave Snyder of the International’s Heavy Truck Department became so exasperated with Sisk’s questions that he told her, “If you don’t like the agreement, you can go work somewhere else.”

“That blew up,” Sisk said.

The “competitive” worker said local officials did not campaign for the first contract. “It feels like it’s more the International than anything,” he said. “They’re playing more of a role than they should. The union is saying we gotta answer to the International, and whatever the International wants to do, they’ll do it. And we had no say or fight in that.”

To try to ensure a fair vote, workers encouraged each other to bring a black pen to mark their ballots. (When they had elected the bargaining team, officials told them to use pencil, and many workers think that election was fraudulent.) They took pictures of their “no” ballots alongside their company badges; Sisk—who had predicted the 90 percent no vote well before it happened—said that hundreds of such pictures were posted to Facebook.

On the first day back in the plant after the first vote, officials circulated a survey asking members’ top five issues to fix. “Everybody’s saying, ‘It’s more than five!’” Sisk said. “They’re filling up the page front and back.”

“You can take that piece of trash back to the table and let them know we are not weak pushovers and if they want to continue using the best truck builders in the world as they call us then they can give us a fair contract!!” said one worker on the local’s Facebook page.

When some workers began a petition to recall the discredited bargaining team, using union bylaws, officials threatened that their move was illegal, accused them of union-busting, and called them communists.

This blog originally appeared at LaborNotes on June 7, 2021. Reprinted with Permission.

About the Author: Jane Slaughter is a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes.