Ron Gettelfinger
President United Auto Workers
Ron Gettelfinger was elected to a second term as president of the UAW on June 14, 2006, at the UAW's 34th Constitutional Convention in Las Vegas.
Gettelfinger was first elected to the union’s top leadership post at the 33rd Constitutional Convention in 2002.
In his first days in office, Gettelfinger called strikes at four Johnson Controls facilities and won first contracts at three, union recognition at one and a landmark neutrality agreement covering 8,000 workers at the employer’s facilities across the country.
In 2003 he led the UAW negotiating teams at GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Delphi and Visteon, reaching agreements on five contracts with solid gains in five days. The contracts covered more than 777,000 active workers, retirees and surviving spouses.
Gettelfinger is an outspoken advocate for national single-payer health care. In January 2006, he called for a “Marshall Plan” to renew America’s industrial base through incentives to manufacture energy-saving advanced technology vehicles and their key components in the United States.
For six years he served as director of UAW Region 3, which represents UAW members in Indiana and Kentucky, before being elected a UAW vice president in 1998. As vice president, Gettelfinger was director of the UAW Aerospace Department and the UAW Ford Department, where he led negotiations in 1999 that focused on "Bargaining for Families."
A member of UAW Local 862 since 1964, Gettelfinger is proud to be called a chassis line repairman. The workers at Ford's Louisville Assembly plant elected Gettelfinger to represent them as a committeeperson, bargaining chairperson and president, as well as a delegate to the National Ford Council and Sub-Council # 2. He was also a member of the UAW national negotiating team during the 1987 Ford negotiations.