Stewards Corner: Members in Motion Changed the Game in Daimler Contract Campaign

Inspired by the success of the Big 3 strike, United Auto Workers members at Daimler Truck North America ran a very different kind of contract campaign this year than we ever had before.

The 7,300 members at DTNA’s four North Carolina plants and parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis were very active, informed, and involved in the bargaining process. This is not how the union had done things in the past.

Here’s what we did differently, and some ideas on how to keep members in the loop and in motion for an effective contract campaign.

DEVELOPING DEMANDS

To start, our Daimler Council held weekly meetings to plan the contract campaign and discuss what was going on in each shop. The council includes representatives from the six local unions at Daimler Truck who bargain together. This was only the second time the council had bargained jointly at a master “common table.”

To identify members’ top priorities, the council put together an electronic bargaining survey, shared via QR code. This survey also helped gather contact information so that bargaining updates could be emailed and texted to members.

The survey resulted in the “Member Demands,” publicized at a campaign kickoff rally on April 2. Members wanted record wage increases, no concessions, and an end to wage tiers. The rally was held at the union hall of our largest local, Local 3520, and also broadcast over Facebook Live.

At the rally, and in all our communications, we highlighted why our demands for a record contract were justified. DTNA had made $20 billion in profit since the last contract was signed in 2018, while members’ buying power had declined by 13 percent.

The union made clear that the April 26 contract expiration was a hard deadline. If a deal wasn’t reached by then, members would go on strike. Tick tock.

AN ESCALATING CAMPAIGN

A series of actions started small and grew in intensity.

Members organized red-shirt days and posted photos on social media of groups of workers holding up union signs. They also covered their workplaces in homemade “Tick Tock” signs.

When management came back with insulting counter-proposals, the bargaining team recorded a video throwing it in the trash. When the company passed out updates putting its own spin on bargaining, members published photos and videos on social media where management’s updates got thrown in the trash, flushed down the toilet, and set on fire.

Locals held practice pickets in the weeks leading up to expiration, where hundreds of workers chanted “Tick Tock! Tick Tock!” Some even started chanting periodically at work.

Locals worked together to organize and promote a massive rally the day after the contract was set to expire. The message to the company was: this will either be a strike rally or a celebration of our new agreement.

SHARED VICTORY

The contract expired at midnight on April 26. We announced that UAW President Shawn Fain would be holding a Facebook Live at 10 p.m. that night to announce a deal or a strike.

At 9:50 p.m., after weeks of escalating actions and hard bargaining, Fain and the negotiating team told the company it could either sign all the remaining proposals or we were announcing a strike. Management caved.

Workers won a new contract that ends wage tiers, raises wages by 16 percent in the first year, cuts the progression to top rate from six years down to four, and includes a cost-of-living adjustment and profit-sharing, both firsts at DTNA. Members overwhelmingly ratified it, with a 94 percent yes vote and record turnout.

TRANSPARENCY WAS ESSENTIAL

The key to this victory was how transparent and participatory the whole campaign was—including the actual bargaining. Management can keep the upper hand if it only has to fight a small group of union activists negotiating in private, with little support from co-workers.

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A bargaining team and the membership are like jumper cables: they only work when they’re connected. We have to bring our workplace power into bargaining, and bring bargaining into the workplace.

But to do this, we first had to break through some myths that often hold unions back:

Myth #1: It’s irresponsible to share our opening demands, because we shouldn’t raise members’ expectations too high.

Truth: Workers and unions should be demanding more in this moment. Corporate profits have soared to a 70-year high, and income inequality in the U.S. is at heights not seen since the Great Depression.

Myth #2: Bargaining behind closed doors is the responsible approach—after all, this is how we’ve always done it.

Truth: Ground rules that bar us from sharing specifics with the membership (or the public) only help management. After all, it’s no secret from the boss! The more we inform and involve our co-workers, the more power we have—which is why the company doesn’t want us to do it.

Myth #3: Bargaining is a give and take. To get something, you have to give something up.

Truth: Bargaining is about power—we take what we have the power to win. At Daimler, we said we would accept no concessions, and we meant it.

Frequent updates from bargaining allowed members to follow what was going on, see the need to escalate, and prepare their friends and family to support us. It also gave us more chances to counter management’s message and show that our unity and resolve weren’t shaken.

Chris Brooks, Jonah Furman, and Mike Morrison are staff at the UAW. This article is adapted from “Winning a Record Contract: A Case Study of the 2024 Contract Bargaining Campaign at Daimler Truck” by the United Auto Workers, available here.