The workforce and Local 5

1933 – 2026

The oldest local in the UAW: The union on the Mishawaka floor is older than the company, and it arrived by the same road. UAW Local 5 began in 1933 as AFL Local Union 18310, representing Studebaker workers in South Bend; in 1935 it was renumbered UAW Local 5, and the first UAW Constitutional Convention was held in South Bend in 1936. In 1940 Local 5 became the first UAW local to hold title to its own home. The Walter P. Reuther Library's finding aid calls it, at its affiliation, the largest auto local in the early struggle to establish the union. When Studebaker closed, the local lived on, in the UAW's own history, "through the amalgamation of some of the sold off operations of Studebaker" — the defense division that became AM General among them. The UAW carries Local 5 today as the oldest existing local in the union, and its Region 2B history page pairs the two names in its title: "A Brief History of AM General and UAW Local 5."

The dated figures: Employment at the Mishawaka works is printed only where a dated, sourced figure stands. January 2009: about 200 workers laid off at the H2 suspension — one contemporary account says 250 — with the company moving eligible H2 employees into other operations. 2015: the Mercedes-Benz R-Class contract was expected to add more than 200 jobs. 2017: the sale of the commercial plant to SF Motors preserved about 430 jobs, 368 of them union. 2023: the JLTV abatement filings carried 371 existing jobs preserved and up to 329 new jobs projected, at an average wage of $26.97 an hour. September 2025: the UAW put the Mishawaka complex's membership at around 400. The Commercial Assembly Plant's separate course — about 430 jobs preserved in 2017 falling to eighty-one remaining workers by July 2019 — is told in the SF Motors entry above. One gap is named rather than filled: no sourced figure for total Mishawaka employment at the Hummer-era peak of 2003–2006 stands in the record pulled for this section; the settling sources are the South Bend Tribune's archives and the state's WARN filings.

The 2025 contract: Local 5's members ratified a new contract on 25 September 2025. The UAW's release of 26 September 2025 gives its terms: a 12 percent wage increase over three years, a large pension increase, and significant progress reversing the tiered pay system; the bargaining chair was Keith Oden, and the region's director Dave Green. The same release frames the agreement against a concessionary history at AM General — retiree healthcare eliminated, profit sharing capped, multiple wage tiers created — and that framing is printed as the union's characterization, attributed. The September 2025 bargaining was public and pointed: a union video of 17 September 2025, filmed on the plant floor, carried members' grievances in those same terms, and a 23-year employee's comment on the thread confirms the fact under the rhetoric — the Army and the National Guard both receive the JLTV from this plant.

Sources:

1. UAW Region 2B, Local 5 history; Walter P. Reuther Library, UAW Local 5 Records (LR000277) — the 1933 AFL origin, the 1935 renumbering, the 1936 South Bend convention, the 1940 hall, the survival through amalgamation, the oldest-existing-local standing.
2. Contemporary trade press, January 2009; AM General/Mercedes-Benz announcement, 2015; South Bend Tribune and transaction record, 2017; St. Joseph County abatement filings as reported, 2023 — the dated employment figures as printed.
3. UAW press release, 26 September 2025 — the 25 September ratification, the approximately 400 Mishawaka members, the 12 percent three-year increase, the pension and tiers terms, Oden and Green; UAW video post, 17 September 2025.