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REGION 2B

Director Rich Rankin

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President Dennis Williams

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The Members’ Press

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UAW's Estrada takes over as lead negotiator for Fiat Chrysler workers

General Motors  are losing their longtime lead negotiator in a surprising move by the UAW leadership mere hours after members elected a new president and a slate of officers.

UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, who represented the UAW with GM since 2014, will now represent the union with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and will also head the UAW's Women's Department, said new union President Gary Jones.

Jones said the move is to give Estrada, who was just elected to her third four-year term, more broad experience. 

"Vice President Estrada has done organizing, she's done General Motors department, now she's got the Chrysler department," said Jones, as Estrada stood beside him during an afternoon press conference. "She's well-rounded and well-suited for the job."

He also said FCA's membership is "unique" in that "there's a lot of technology in that membership, they're very young," and "Cindy has got that talent. I don't know Twitter from anything else and she's very good at that stuff."

 Estrada was the first woman to lead the UAW's GM department.

Meet the labor leader who will face off with GM Jones said GM had no say in the UAW's decision to move Estrada.The UAW has long had a Women’s Department that focuses on research, training and workplace policy, a UAW spokesman said. 

Vice President Terry Dittes will be assigned to General Motors and Rory Gamble to Ford. Ray Curry, the union’s secretary-treasurer, will cover accounting, General Dynamics and heavy truck.

Jones told members at the 37th Constitutional Convention in Detroit that he was honored and reminded members of the UAW's core values.

"When faced with bridges, we will remember standing on the overpass on Miller Road, Gate 4, in the Ford River Rouge complex," Jones said to cheers, citing a historic confrontation in 1937.

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Jones succeeds Dennis Williams, who retires this month. He credited Williams with ending "unfair tier wage" systems and turning the union's books from "red to black." As for organizing more shops, Jones said, "We're going to look at where our successes were, where our failures were and learn from our failures and try to repeat our successes."

 

Every four years, the UAW holds a
Constitutional Convention where
delegates adopt resolutions that
set the union’s position on
important workplace and societal
issues, decide constitutional
changes, and elect officers and
regional directors.
Local union members elect their convention delegates. Local
union delegate numbers and votes are based on membership
size.

WELCOME TO THE 37TH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION IN DETROIT

I’ve been a UAW member for over 40 years, for 17 of those I’ve had the privilege to represent the membership on the International Executive Board. In those years what I’ve enjoyed most is the time I’ve spent talking with members. Those conversations, prepping for grievance hearings, in union halls, on picket lines, at CAP conferences and Labor Day parades laid the foundation of my understanding about what matters, what holds us together as UAW brothers and sisters and what drives us forward in our fight for social and economic justice — solidarity. We use the word daily, but we should remind ourselves of just how powerful solidarity is. Solidarity is unity among people with a common interest; mutual support within a group. We are unified in our fight for economic and social justice. That is our common interest and we take action in pursuit of that goal in organizing drives, at the bargaining table and in politics. Our power as the UAW is in staying focused on our common interest and supporting each other as we act to secure it. That’s solidarity. That’s the UAW.

It’s clear that we need to reinvigorate our commitment to solidarity for the fights ahead. I’ve seen the changes taking place in our country. The way politicians have abandoned the cause of working people to serve the needs of the wealthy donors that fund their campaigns. This means that when we fight the companies — we have always had to fight the companies — we do it in a more hostile environment. When the UAW was becoming the great union it is today, we lived with a more level playing field and unions were able to fight for a more equal distribution of income. We live in a different world today, one that more closely resembles the days before the Great Depression, but we still have a great union with a determination to fight for working people. Together we can win this fight!

37th Constitutional Convention

  • The 37th Constitutional Convention convened on Monday June 11, 2018. Our 2018 delegates serving on our credential, rules and resolution committees were introduced along with our International Executive Board (IEB) and former IEB members along with the regional directors.