Voices of Steel: An Interview with Scott Houldieson

To celebrate Labor Month, we interviewed laborers from across the region to highlight their experiences and uplift their voices. 

We invite you to read this second installment in the series, an interview with Scott Houldieson, an electrician at the Ford Assembly Plant and United Auto Workers Union Local 551, Chicago member. In this blog, Scott reminds us of the importance of a Just Transition away from an extractive economy towards a regenerative economy, where no one is left behind in this shift.

UPDATE: As of November 2023, union members at Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors have ratified a new 4½-year contract with 11% pay increases secured after a history-making six-week strike in September and October 2023.

Daniela

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today, Scott! Could you please tell me about yourself? Where are you from? And what led you to work in the automotive industry?

Scott

I live in Northwest Indiana in Highland. I have been familiar with your organization, Just Transition Northwest Indiana, for quite a while now! I've been an auto worker for 34 years. I was hired at the Ford Chicago assembly plant in April of 1989. I went through an apprenticeship to become an electrician and have been an electrician since ‘94. 

Daniela

How did you become interested in the auto industry? 

Scott 

Well, my father was an auto worker. He worked at the Ford stamping plant in Chicago Heights. He retired probably about the time I started my apprenticeship in ‘94 and is still doing pretty good as a retiree. I knew that the auto industry had family-sustaining jobs. I went there for a job to sustain my family. You know, some people think it's something special to work at Ford. It's actually very grueling work, especially on the assembly line. They’re not doing you any favors by giving you a job there. But, the jobs there used to be family-sustaining. We've taken concessions over the past couple of decades, and those have really had an impact, especially on younger auto workers and their livelihood.

Daniela

Can you share more about the auto industry?

Scott 

It's an exciting time in the auto industry for a couple of reasons, especially in the unionized auto industry. For the first time in our union's history, founded in 1935, we had direct elections for international officers. I chair the steering committee for Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), and every candidate we endorsed prevailed in their election. 

We are excited to have Shawn Fain as our union president. Being a reform candidate has changed the way that he's approached these negotiations. In the past, negotiations were conducted behind closed doors by a small group of high-ranking union officials. While those high-ranking union officials still conduct them, Shawn and the top leadership in the United Auto Workers (UAW) have been very open about what our contract demands and are being very transparent about the whole process. 

Another thing that makes it an interesting time in the auto industry is that the industry is shifting to electric vehicles at a fairly rapid pace. There are good things and bad things about that. Even with the transition to electric vehicles, there are problems with the minerals that need to be extracted and utilized in the production of batteries and electronic components. There are still things that need to be addressed as far as environmental impact. But overall, the sense is that electric vehicles are more environmentally friendly than the internal combustion engines that have powered this industry for over 100 years.

But in that transition, the companies are seeking to leave workers behind. Even after the concessions that we took to save them from bankruptcy, or, you know, attempted to save them from bankruptcy. They're working on some joint ventures to build batteries with foreign manufacturers, and auto workers are worried that that's going to leave us on the sidelines when the transition happens. We also want to guarantee that as the transition proceeds from internal combustion powertrain to electronic powertrain for vehicles, workers working in those internal combustion factories get an opportunity to transfer along with those jobs in the electric vehicle industry. That is one of our key demands in our contract negotiations now. 

The UAW has a white paper that they put out about the Lordstown plant in Ohio and some of the safety issues that people are facing there, along with the work being low pay and precarious. There are also some dramatic safety concerns with the production of battery cells. 

Daniela

Can you tell us about your leadership with the United Auto Workers?

Scott 

I've been interested in making our union better for a very long time. The concessionary contracts that we went through over the last couple of decades really piqued my interest.

I’m trying to find a way to fight back against that. I ran for office in my local, held the office of financial secretary for a term and the office of Vice President for a term and a half, and ran for president if I did not prevail in that. During this time, the UAW was going through a very deep and broad corruption scandal. In that scandal, there were several different forms of corruption. Some were, you know, just taking money from union dues. Others were shaking down vendors for kickbacks. The most egregious of those were taking bribes from companies they were negotiating with. And that was part of the reason that we got these bad contracts over the past few decades. Let me be clear that corruption goes both ways. The union couldn't be corrupted without the company helping them along. They were offering bribes, offering ghost payroll jobs, that the union ultimately had to pay back after the consent decree that the union agreed to.

My role was to fight corruption as it was emerging. That’s how Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) started. We were a group of UAW members trying to figure out how to fight back against this corruption erupting in our union using the methods outlined in our constitution. We started organizing a special convention to change our constitution and shift to a direct election of international officers. That's been a dream of reformers in the UAW for a very long time. We were able to do that through filing charges and filing appeals and things like that against those who had been involved in corruption. Eventually, the federal government stepped in to manage the corruption cases and filed charges under the RICO statutes against the union. This led to the agreement to issue a referendum to change how we elect our international officers: The referendum would be a mail ballot to every member of the UAW, including retirees all across the country. 

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) became an official organization in September 2020 when we had our first annual meeting. That's when we elected our steering committee and started organizing to win the referendum. We raised money to pass out flyers and to do a postcard mailing to as many people as we could, but of course, with limited resources, you know, it was limited to what we could do. But, we were organizing and building a base of people working with us to try and reform and grow our union.

In December 2021, we prevailed with the referendum! We won that vote by a two-to-one margin. And, then, we had to go try and find some candidates to run in the next election. We got a group of candidates together. We got our members to interview these candidates and vote on whether to endorse or not. And that became the UAW members United slate. All of them won their elections. Since then, Shawn Fain has hit the ground running. And this summer, we opened contract talks with the automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.

Daniela

Are these what we call the big three? 

Scott

Yeah. Sometimes referred to as the big three, sometimes the Detroit three.

Daniela

What are some key messages you want to convey to anyone reading this blog? 

Scott

I would like to encourage people to pay attention to what the International Union is doing. You can follow along on UAW.org  & UAW International on Facebook. 

Also, follow UAWD.org & Unite All Workers for Democracy on Facebook.

Also, we are asking community members to support our actions leading up to contract expiration. So recently, in the Detroit area, they had a practice picket. I'm not sure how many community members came out to support it. But, you know, those kinds of things will be important for the community to come by. And if you can't stop and join a picket, at least as you're driving by, honk and let us know that we have your support and you have our backs. We're fighting for the working class in this country and trying to set the standard for contract negotiations moving forward. 

I mentioned earlier that with President Shawn, there's been a paradigm shift in how we approach contract negotiations. He has been very open and upfront about our contract demands. And he is instead of negotiating behind closed doors; he is publicly telling us what the companies are proposing! In fact, in negotiations, Stelantis lied to their employees and said they weren't seeking any concessions, but he read to us what concessions they had put in their offer and then took their contract offer and threw it in the trash. So it was, it was pretty dramatic. This change has the business community really worried about this “class war,” right? They only call it class war when we fight back, you know. The class war has been going on forever. And it only gets termed that when the workers stand up to fight for their rights.

If we go on strike supporting our picket lines, you're welcome to join our picket lines. And stop by the union halls. For those folks in Northwest Indiana, the Ford Chicago assembly plant has a union hall on Torrence Avenue, UAW Local 551, and the south suburbs. Chicago Heights has a union hall right down the street from the Ford stamping plant. That's local 588. And that's on Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago Heights. 

So stop by there, if you have, maybe donate some non-perishable goods, toiletries, things like that. We'll have a strike pantry set up where we can help members who are struggling to get by on the strike pay. But we need to know that the community has our backs.

Daniela 

Absolutely. In one sentence, what is the union fighting for right now?

Scott

We're fighting for just contract and just transition. 

Right now, the auto industry is in an upheaval transition to electric vehicles, as you're well aware. We want to make sure that the workers who built the profits for these companies over the past decades can be part of this transition. They made this money off of our work. We're the ones that build the value into the products that make them their money. Without us, there is no profit. We want to have job guarantees and job protections, and we want to get some of those profits! Many of those dollars should be in the pockets of auto workers who will then take the money to their communities, support local businesses, and help our communities thrive.

In the past decade, the Big Three have produced a profit of over a quarter of a trillion dollars. It's hard to wrap your head around what that actually means. President Fain said the profits that the big three have made over the past decade could have bought every National Hockey League team, every net National Basketball League team, and every major league baseball team and still had $50 billion left, which they could have given free season tickets to all the season ticket holders. So that puts it in perspective!

Daniela  

Our Mission here at Just Transition Northwest Indiana is to educate and organize  Northwest Indiana communities and workers to support a just transition to a regenerative economy that protects the environment, climate, and future generations.

Can you tell us what a Just Transition means to you?

Scott

Yes, to me, a Just Transition means that the workers building the profits for these companies get their fair share of the profits and job security! We think that's a just transition.

Daniela

Changing gears a little bit, I wanted to ask, what are you passionate about?

Scott

Well, I'm passionate about workers' rights. I want to see the working class get their rewards for the work that they provide. That makes our economy and communities thrive without the workers getting their just rewards. What you have is all of the proceeds of the work that we do going to people who don't do the work, and that's where my passion is fighting for social and economic justice and workers' rights.

Daniela

Focusing on your job, what roles have you had at the plant?

Scott

When I started in 1989, I was working on the assembly line. I was putting in electronic engine control, which was a little computer box mounted into the firewall. I had 50 seconds per car to do so. I was 27 years old at the time, and by far, that was the hardest job that I had ever done in my life. There was a water fountain that was probably about 50 feet away from me. I could not get a drink of water from that water fountain in between cars; it took two weeks to get fast enough to that job to be able to get a drink of water. And most days, it was almost 100 degrees outside, and the plant had no air conditioning.

Five and a half years later, I landed my apprenticeship. My life has been much better since then. I'm now a journeyman electrician; I've been that for probably about 28 years now. I’m happy because it’s less taxing on my body. 

Daniela

Thank you so much for sharing. Can you tell me what your day-to-day looks like working in the plant and being a union leader?

Scott

Right now, we're working really hard as active union members to educate our membership on what we're seeking in the contract, coming up, preparing them for the possibility of a strike. That's something that the members that I worked with have no recollection of; I have no recollection of it. At Ford, we have not been on strike since 1976. So it's been a very long time. We have to get our members prepared for the possibility of a strike in this contract, and really, the things that we're demanding out of this contract will help these jobs become family-sustaining jobs once again and also protect our jobs our workplaces and make sure that this transition to electric vehicles does not leave us behind.

Daniela

Thank you so much. And my last question is, what advice do you have for current workers in the auto industry?

Scott

Prepare for a strike prepared to take the company. The more prepared we are, the more likely the company will come to the bargaining table with their pocketbooks open and be prepared to meet our demands. If we are not preparing, then we're telling the company that we're okay with things as they are; they can keep mistreating us. We will do everything we can to make sure that everybody comes through the struggle in a better place.