DETROIT — Ray Curry, who last week became the UAW’s fourth president in three years, can be challenged to develop the troubled union in a time of unprecedented change because the business shifts to electrification. That is assuming he can win reelection subsequent 12 months in what may very well be the primary direct vote by rank-and-file members in a long time.
Curry, 55, was chosen by the UAW Worldwide Government Board to serve the ultimate 12 months of Rory Gamble’s time period. Gamble, 65, was barred by union age limits from operating once more subsequent 12 months and selected to retire early within the hopes of organising Curry as a possible multiple-term chief.
The format for subsequent 12 months’s election will depend upon the end result of a referendum later this 12 months, when members will resolve whether or not to undertake a brand new one-member, one-vote system for selecting their leaders. The referendum is one situation of the UAW’s six-year settlement with the federal government over the corruption scandal that resulted in jail sentences for Gamble’s two predecessors and different former officers.
If the one-member, one-vote system is permitted, Curry’s reelection bid in June 2022 may very well be the hardest for an incumbent president in current union historical past.
Whoever wins can be in cost because the union works to arrange employees at battery vegetation deliberate by Normal Motors and Ford Motor Co. and when it negotiates new contracts at a time when startup automakers are rolling out electrical automobiles constructed with lower-paid, nonunion labor.
“There is no scarcity of challenges,” Artwork Wheaton, a labor professor at Cornell College, instructed Automotive Information. “Ford and GM need to construct all these battery vegetation, however are they keen to pay the identical wage scale as making engines and transmissions?”
Each automakers have indicated they’re going to add U.S. battery vegetation within the coming years by means of joint ventures however have to date declined to decide to utilizing union employees. They’ve, nevertheless, indicated assist for potential unionization efforts.
Curry has expertise main organizing drives throughout his time as assistant director and later director of Area 8, which covers a lot of the South. The UAW says Curry helped forge new labor agreements with elements suppliers and was key in organizing the area’s first gaming bargaining unit. However since 2014, the union has misplaced two high-profile organizing drives at Volkswagen’s plant in Tennessee and one at a Nissan plant in Mississippi.
Nonetheless, Wheaton mentioned Curry’s expertise in so-called right-to-work states can be useful.
“Organizing in Detroit, the place there’s some fondness for having union illustration, is totally different than Tennessee,” he mentioned. “He has that battle-tested mentality. Having some successes popping out of that area is useful for him.”
Except for that, Curry should proceed to take care of the fallout of the corruption scandal, which could have led to a authorities takeover however for the monetary and moral reforms enacted by Gamble and Curry, who was secretary-treasurer since 2018.
“As president, I pledge to proceed to construct upon our dedication to a tradition of transparency, reforms and checks and balances,” Curry mentioned in a press release.
“I need to additionally say that I can be embracing the mannequin that has been set forth by my brother and pal, Rory L. Gamble, to be accessible and accountable to our members, to maintain them knowledgeable and engaged. Rory has led us by means of the storm, and we’re so grateful for his management.”
Curry joined the UAW in July 1992 as a truck assembler at Freightliner Vehicles in Mount Holly, N.C., in accordance with a UAW biography.