Theresa McClary finally joined the UAW because now, more than ever, she sees union strength as essential.

“I felt my job was threatened all the time,” said McClary, a phlebotomist at a Mount Pleasant Hospital. “People are tired of being oppressed. We got to see firsthand that not being union or UAW we were more low wage, including entry-level people who didn’t have our schooling or experience.”

McClary, 61, of Harrison illustrates a current UAW trend.

The labor union known mostly for representing an estimated 150,000 employees of the Detroit Three automakers reversed a one-year drop in numbers after nine years of steady growth.

This month, the UAW will report to the U.S. Department of Labor a dues-paying membership of 398,829 — an increase of 3,125 members between December 2018 to December 2019, Brian Rothenberg, UAW spokesman, told the Free Press.

While membership growth is less than 1%, the union is no longer seeing losses.

Since March 2018, the UAW has organized more than 21,000 new members.

Since March 2019, the union has welcomed new members from the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, McLaren Central Hospital in Mount Pleasant, Vegas casino workers from the Paris, Wynn, Bally's, Harrah's and Caesar's Palace, aerospace company Triumph Aerostructures in Florida and auto parts suppliers Euclid Manufacturing in Detroit, Faurecia in Missouri and Volvo Parts in Nevada.

As part of an overall strategy designed to buffer members financially, the UAW has continued to recruit outside the auto industry in areas such as law, higher education, gaming and health care. Member dues go to a single pot, so an engineer in California is helping to support strike pay in 2019 for an autoworker in Flint, and vice versa.

'Having a voice'

Meanwhile, public defenders in Philadelphia say the UAW was highly recommended because of its longtime representation of public defenders and legal services for the poor in New York.

"This is to protect workers' rights, make sure benefits and salary are good, and have a reasonable grievance procedure if there are conflicts with management," said Roger Schrading, 58, who specializes in homicide cases. "This is really about having a voice in the workplace."

The private non-profit Defender Association of Philadelphia handles the majority of public defender cases for the city. And their lawyers made it official with the UAW this February.

"For us, this is not a management versus worker scenario," said Shenu Lawrence-Gupta, 44, a public defender who specializes in domestic violence cases. "This is so attorneys don't have to worry about health insurance. Having a contract ensures that we are no longer at-will employees. That safety net allows attorneys to make bold and sometimes controversial arguments for their clients without fear that their zealous representation could cost them their job."

For more than 200 public defenders who just joined, she said, the threat of internal politics has been lifted. "Say you and your supervisor don't get along, all of a sudden that changes the trajectory of your career. Our hope is to have more structure and guidance."

In the end, it was the legacy of the UAW that swayed new members, Schrading said.

Why now?

Since the union organized employees at her hospital, McClary said, work schedules and treatment of workers are less based on personal friendships and now follow guidelines, and one supervisor was required to take training to better comply with legal standards involving personal conduct.

“We got to see firsthand the UAW go to bat for people,” she said. "For myself and my coworkers, it feels like we finally have a voice in the workforce."

In addition, growth on university campuses has been extensive, including researchers and graduate assistants who fight for safe laboratory conditions and steady paychecks while doing research that generates millions for universities.

“Sometimes there’s a bit of an eyebrow raise when you say UAW. People ask, ‘United Auto Workers?’ But we chose the UAW because it represents the most academic workers of any union in the country. And it bargains great contracts,” David Parsons, president of UAW Local 4121, representing more than 4,500 graduate and undergraduate students and researchers at the University of Washington, said in 2018.

He told the Free Press on April 7: “We continue to be industry leaders.”

The increased membership may reflect everything from satisfaction with auto company negotiations that protected health care benefits in 2019 to increased uncertainty about worker protections with recent changes under President Donald Trump, workers say.

The latest membership data was to be reported to the federal government by law by April 1 but the deadline was pushed back because of COVID-19.

Timely collection of dues also reflects an effort by local union officials and the overall leadership to focus on bookkeeping and internal discipline that's required to prevent financial problems.

Now, during the pandemic, the union is working with employers to track and monitor infection and safety risk and enhance safety protocols.

UAW leaders have said the diversified strategy for recruitment is essential to its strength during uncertain times.

"Just look at what we are experiencing today," said UAW President Rory Gamble. "UAW members wanted a voice in their health and safety over COVID-19. And across the country in many different sectors they have a voice at the table in how we deal with this pandemic, their exposure and this national tragedy."

He pointed to the strike last fall against GM and creating a path for temporary workers to become full-time workers, effectively ending the tiered system. "In the end, it comes down to that voice, at the local level."

Challenges ahead

Gary Klotz, a longtime employment lawyer in Detroit, said UAW recruitment wasn't easy.

"For the UAW, it was probably one of the worst years in their history because of their ongoing investigation, numerous guilty pleas and convictions, the costly strike against GM and the destruction of their image as a clean union," he said.

In 2019, the UAW reported a membership total that dropped by 35,000 from the year earlier to 395,703. Union officials point out this data is a snapshot of what's collected on Dec. 31. The dramatic drop could have reflected many things — the high profile federal corruption case against union leaders, disruption after the transition to new leaders or a lack of organization after new leaders took office.

It was, in fact, a tumultuous time.

The executive team that oversaw the last UAW membership tally was led by then-President Gary Jones, who resigned in disgrace in November and is expected to plead guilty to embezzling more than $1 million. His legal case has been postponed due to the coronavirus impact on the court system.

New members said they weren't oblivious to the controversial landscape.

“We were told the union is cleaning house," McClary said. "We knew going in about the issues.”

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Former President Dennis Williams, himself implicated in the corruption scandal, said a priority was diversifying the union beyond the auto industry so that it could withstand economic disruption in the manufacturing industry. New members are based at schools including Harvard, Boston University and the University of California at Berkeley.

The union has not fully recovered from the Great Recession, when membership dropped to 355,191. Membership always ebbs and flows. In February 2018, the UAW saw a high of 437,649 members that by year's end fell so low it snapped the growth trend.

Adelphia Lyles, 37, of Flint works on an assembly line building Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. The new UAW member said the union fought to get temporary workers like her hired. And with all the workplace safety challenges created by the pandemic, efforts of the UAW are appreciated more than ever.

'Things are shifting'

“You have someone who’s sticking up for you, speaking up for you. If we don’t have that, you have a situation where you can’t get things accomplished just as one person,” Lyles said.

“Things are shifting, kind of headed in the right direction now. You always have your naysayers. But with the coronavirus, the union got us out of the plants. There were growing concerns but especially in Flint and Detroit where cases are spiking by the minute. It was instrumental for the union to step in and say, ‘Hey, we need the union workers to be safe.’ ”

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard at 313-222-6512 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.