UAW priorities for 112th Congress

We need all UAW members to help us accomplish our legislative goals this year.

Please let your representative and senators know what the UAW’s priorities are for the 112th Congress, as follows:

Job creation: The UAW will lobby for legislation to make large-scale investments to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure and to create jobs.

Workers’ First Amendment rights: At the same time, the UAW is undertaking an unprecedented effort to organize workers at nonunion transnational automakers in order to rebuild the American middle class and to protect our members in all sectors. We will ask members of Congress to endorse the UAW Principles for Fair Union Elections and to publicly support workers whenever they are advocating for the right to organize.

Preserving health care reform: The UAW strongly supported the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010, viewing it as a major step toward the UAW’s long-held goal of universal health care. The UAW will urge Congress to oppose legislative efforts to repeal it or to block its implementation.

Retirement security: Social Security has not contributed a dime to the federal deficit and should not be included in the debate over deficit reduction. Moreover, there is no Social Security funding “crisis” requiring cuts to the program. The UAW will lobby Congress to reject attempts to raise the eligibility age or to privatize Social Security.

Energy and the environment: The UAW supports one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions, rather than having a patchwork of state-issued standards. To maintain the single national standard, we will work with our allies in the environmental movement and with the auto companies to oppose legislation to strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Immigration reform and the DREAM Act: The UAW supports comprehensive immigration reform with a road to citizenship and with tough enforcement of workplace rights for all employees, documented and undocumented. We will continue to support the DREAM Act, to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented young people who have grown up in the United States and who go to college or serve in the U.S. military for two years.

U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA): For the first time in U.S. trade negotiations, the UAW had a seat at the table in the KORUS-FTA talks. We were able to win significant improvements in the agreement, including delayed implementation of the reductions in U.S. tariffs on cars and light trucks; a first-ever, auto-specific safeguard to protect against “surges” of Korean vehicles after the U.S. tariffs are reduced; and meaningful action on Korean nontariff barriers that have historically kept U.S.-made vehicles out of the Korean market. For these reasons, the UAW supports passage of the KORUS-FTA.

Source: UAW Legislative, Governmental and International Affairs Department