Fed Up with ‘Walmart Wages,’ Workers at Alabama Auto Parts Plant Vote Overwhelmingly to Join UAW [View all]

[Ichingcarpenter]

Piedmont, Ala. – Facing pay as low as $9.70/hour, unaffordable health care, and abusive use of temp positions, workers at a parts plant operated by the global auto supplier Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) announced Thursday that they have voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers.

The vote, 89-45, marks a rejection of the pay cuts and growing use of temp positions that are increasingly the norm at auto parts plants, which now employ nearly three out of every four auto workers in the United States. CVG is one of the world’s top manufacturers of parts for heavy trucks and other commercial vehicles, and its Alabama factory is one of the company’s most profitable facilities.

“Our backs were up against the wall – in just a few years, the company gutted our health insurance, took away personal days, and started replacing jobs with temp positions that pay less than Walmart,” said Tiffany Moore, 34, a mother of two children, who is paid $13.84/hour at the CVG plant. “I’ve never been part of a union before, but after years of scraping by while the company ignored our concerns, anyone could see that the only option we had left was to join together to demand the change we need to support ourselves and families.”

Roughly one-in-four jobs at the CVG plant are temp positions, where pay starts at $9.70/hour, with no benefits. For all production workers at the plant, wages are capped at just $15.80/hour, regardless of skill or experience. And costly health insurance reduces pay even further: single and spousal health insurance costs $60 per week, and family health insurance costs $110 per week, meaning that workers paid the top wage of $15.80/hour, or roughly $33,000 per year, will see their take-home pay reduced to just $27,000 per year when they purchase family health insurance.

http://uaw.org/fed-up-with-walmart-wages-workers-at-alabama-auto-parts-plant-vote-overwhelmingly-to-join-uaw/