The UAW has a long history of its members serving in the military. More than 5,000 active duty reservists and veterans work at General Motors (GM) plants all over the United States. This is why GM and the UAW teamed up to donate five Chevrolet mobility vans to help veterans with disabilities get around in their communities. Watch the video from GM (below) for the whole story. 

In 2008, at the height of the recession, Mitt Romney declared that government should “let Detroit go bankrupt” rather than providing federal aid to automakers. President Obama was a lot smarter than that. As a result of federal assistance, General Motors (GM) posted record profits and paid back its loans early, Chrysler paid back all its loans and hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers are on the job who otherwise would be out of work (click on chart to enlarge).

Karen Eusanio, a UAW Local 112 member and second generation auto worker, is one of those workers. Speaking last night at the Democratic National Convention, Eusanio recalled her struggle to support her children after GM laid her off, and the unpopularity of Obama’s plan to save the auto industry. Yet, President Obama didn’t think about the polls or the politics, said Eusanio.

He thought about the people. Because he put himself in our shoes, we’re back on our feet. Obama believed in us, he stood up for us.

Last night, Paul Ryan lived up to the Mitt Romney campaign pledge that it would not be “dictated by fact-checkers” when he blamed President Obama for the closure of a General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.  As any fact-checker or Janesville worker who lost a job knows, the plant closed during the Bush administration.

This is a cross-post by Sara Jerving of the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch.

When Dave Schumacher, 51 years old, lost his job in 2009 in U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., he wasn’t alone. Schumacher drove trucks for a supplier company that served the General Motors (GM) SUV plant, the economic heartbeat of this blue-collar town. GM consolidated production in Texas and Mexico.

When the four-million-square-foot GM plant in the southern part of town closed in 2009 after a series of layoffs, it took with it the jobs of some 2,800 employees, the single most significant economic blow inflicted upon any Wisconsin community since the economic collapse of 2008. But it wasn’t just GM workers who lost their jobs, the closure caused a ripple effect of business closings and layoffs in the area, leaving an ill-equipped safety net supporting the workers who remained in the community. 

It’s not much of a shock that lies are popping up in the Republican presidential nomination race. But in Michigan, Mitt Romney is telling one whopper of lie about the UAW, the auto bailout that saved two of the nation’s Big 3 car manufacturers and President Obama.

While Mitt Romney is campaigning in Michigan this week, workers there are letting him know just how offensive they find his claim that “we should have let Detroit go bankrupt,” when the economy and the auto industry were about to collapse.

The UAW and Chrysler Group LLC reached a tentative four-year agreement this morning that will create more than 2,000 new jobs and invest $4.5 billion to retool and upgrade plants to produce new and upgraded vehicles.

Members of the UAW working at General Motors Co. (GM) voted by two-to-one to ratify a new four-year collective bargaining agreement with the company. The two sides had reached a tentative agreement Sept. 16.

The four-year tentative agreement between the UAW and General Motors (GM) provides jobs for UAW members who have been laid off over the past several years, creates and retains more than 17,000 jobs and brings production back to the United States that had been moved to Mexico and other parts of the world.

The UAW reached a tentative agreement with General Motors Co. (GM) late last night. The union says the new pact, which covers 48,500 employees, achieved some major goals, including significant investments and products for GM plants, creating good new U.S. jobs and bringing back to this country some overseas manufacturing.