The first step in understanding the finances of the UAW is to understand the dues, as dues are the major source of income for the UAW. The dues level that members pay and allocations to locals are linked to the balance of the Strike and Defense Fund. It is a bit complicated but necessary for understanding finances and investments. I’ll take a stab at trying to explain this all. The important thing to learn from all this is whether you are private or public sector, hourly or salary, you’ll pay either a high rate or a low rate for dues, depending on the current net value of the Strike and Defense Fund.
The UAW Constitution explains all of this page this in Article 16 Section 2(a) and 2(b). The UAW also has a website that explains part of this.
The first consideration is whether you are in the private sector, or in the public sector without the right to strike. Dues are lower for public sector members who don’t have the right to strike. You also need to consider whether you are paid by the hour or by salary. The math here should work out so you’d pay about the same dues either way, hourly or salary, but obviously there are different units to account for. For the rest of this explanation, I’ll just use the hourly private sector rate to make this less complicated. If you are in a different situation, public sector or salary, you can look up your rate in the UAW Constitution Article 16 Section 5, or in the graphic at the bottom of the page.
Then you need to consider the balance of the Strike and Defense Fund, on the modified cash accounting basis. The UAW provides monthly Strike and Defense Fund reports to locals on LUIS, and as a member you can ask your local for access to these reports and you should be given access to them. These reports show the value of the Strike and Defense Fund in the modified cash accounting system. With this system, investments in the Strike and Defense Fund are carried on the books at the price the UAW paid for them, even if the market value of the investments exceeds the price paid.
Right now, the dues are 2.5 hours per month, for private sector hourly workers, and the value of the Strike and Defense Fund is less than $850 million. When the value of the Strike and Defense Fund grows and exceeds $850 million, member dues are decreased by 0.5 hour per month, to 2.0 hours per month. At that point dues remain at this lower rate until the Strike and Defense Fund drops below $650 million, at which time the higher dues rate of 2.5 hours will kick in again. At the higher dues rate, the additional 0.5 hours of dues goes directly to the Strike and Defense Fund. The idea behind this is to have higher dues rates that build up the Strike and Defense Fund until the Strike and Defense Fund is topped off at $850 million. [Please refer to Article 16, Section 2 of our Constitution for details discussed in this paragraph].
The graphic below, from the UAW website, has the details of this in text and graphic form:
