US auto workers strike escalates as UAW president calls on 38 more plants to join
Michael Sainato
Fri, September 22, 2023
Photograph: Reuters
The historic US autoworkers’ strike escalated on Friday as the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, called on 38 additional plants across 20 states to join the strike.
During a live stream update on Friday morning, Fain announced the additional strikes at automaker plants as contract negotiations with the big three automakers remain far apart on economic issues.
The strike is the first to hit all three of the US’s largest vehicle manufacturers at the same time and is becoming increasingly political. Fain invited Joe Biden to the picket line on Friday and, according to The Washington Post, Biden will visit the picket lines next Tuesday.
“We invite and encourage everyone who supports our case to join us on the picket line, from our friends and families all the way up to the president of the United States. We invite you to join us in our fight,” said Fain.
Fain noted there had been some real progress in negotiations with Ford, including eliminating a lower wage tier, additional job security, conversion for all temporary workers, reinstating cost of living adjustment that was eliminated in 2009, and the right to strike over plant closures.
“The companies know how to make this right,” said Fain during the live stream. “Stellantis and GM in particular are going to need some serious pushing.”
“The world is watching, and the people are on our side. We’ve seen poll after poll come out saying the American people support what we are doing,” added Fain.
Politicians on both sides have seized on the dispute. Donald Trump will make a speech in Detroit next Wednesday, a day after Biden’s visit, where he will attempt to woo UAW workers. Other Republicans have thrown their support behind the strikers despite the party’s long-term antipathy towards organized labor.
Senator Tim Scott, a presidential hopeful, has maintained the traditional party line and said striking workers should be fired.
Progressive Democrats have already come out in support of the UAW and on Sunday, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Cori Bush are set to appear in Wentzville, Missouri, at a solidarity rally where General Motors autoworkers have been on strike.
The UAW began striking on 15 September through a “stand up” strike strategy with walkouts at targeted plants to keep the automakers guessing. Three plants with about 13,000 workers walked out last Friday, a Stellantis plant in Toledo, Ohio, a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, and a General Motors plant in Wentzville, Missouri.
The surprise strategy reportedly caused the automakers to prepare for strikes at the wrong plants, causing further disruptions. The automakers have responded to the strikes with temporary layoffs, with Stellantis announcing 300 layoffs at three plants, General Motors announcing 2,000 temporary layoffs in Kansas, and 600 layoffs announced at the Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan.
Autoworkers have called for substantial wage increases and the return of benefits conceded during the 2008 economic recession but never reinstated once the automakers returned to profitability. The UAW has criticized the multibillion-dollar profits reported by the big three automakers in the past decade, including exorbitant executive salaries and billions funneled to Wall Street through stock buybacks and dividends. The automakers have characterized the union’s asks as “unsustainable
Across US, reaction to Fain's strike call
is swift and strong
In a Facebook Live message to UAW members across the country Friday morning, UAW President Shawn Fain acknowledged progress in talks with Ford while lambasting GM and Stellantis for failing to meet key union demands, and called on workers at 38 GM and Stellantis plants in 20 states to join the week-old strike at noon.
The reaction was swift and rippled across the nation. Here are some updates from affected states.
In Ohio
Workers at GM's Cincinnati Parts Distribution Center in West Chester were called to strike at noon today.
The GM facility employs 123 workers and has an annual payroll of about $10.3 million, according to the automaker. The 404,000-square-foot facility opened in 2000. It fulfills orders for GM auto dealers and GM's auto parts subsidiary ACDelco.
Workers at Ford's transmission plant in Sharonville, which employs almost 1,800 workers, have not been called.
More: UAW's Fain announces expanded strike, targets 38 GM, Stellantis distribution sites
More: Auto workers shake fists, honk horns as expanded UAW walkouts get underway
In Tennessee
Workers with UAW Local 2406 at the Memphis ACDelco Parts Distribution Center were slated to join the picket lines, the Central Labor Council of Memphis and West Tennessee confirmed Friday morning.
"UAW International Union members at ALL General Motors and Stellantis Distribution Centers will stand up on strike at noon today. This includes our siblings at UAW Local 2406 here in Memphis at AC Delco Parts Distributing. We stand with you!" the group said in a Facebook post.
A reporter with ABC24 Memphis captured workers driving away as the strike began.
The Memphis ACDelco Parts Distribution Center/Bulk Center employs 195 workers, according to the website. The 660,000-square-foot facility opened in 1999.
Workers from this Memphis facility have joined previous UAW strikes.
In Tennessee, the Spring Hill GM plant was not on the list of plants going on strike.
"Spring Hill I know you are ready to go," Fain said at the end of his announcement and encouraged union members at Spring Hill and several other plants to stand by.
Tina McDonald, the union chairperson for Ryder, paced on Friday morning outside the UAW Local 1853 Hall after Fain's announcement.
“It’s coming,” McDonald said of the possible strike. “It’s definitely coming.”
The Tennessee plant, the largest in North America at 11 million square feet, employs about 3,700 employees working under an expired contract. They produce the Cadillac XT5, XT6, the all-electric LYRIQ and the GMC Acadia.
McDonald, who has worked at the local Ryder plant for six years, comes from a family line of autoworkers.
McDonald’s dad was employed at the Fisher body plant in Pontiac, Michigan, where he saw similar hardships — driving McDonald’s passion for her local union.
“He would come home every day exhausted,” she said. “And they want to take things away here too. So I will stand with my union until (GM) does what its supposed to.”
Spring Hill Mayor Jim Hagaman said the city encourages a swift negotiation and supports both parties. He's also aware of the economic impact of strikes.
Hagaman worries about the hardship that an interruption in work could cause vulnerable families.
"We value 100% the partnership, as corporate citizens, that GM has with the city and the union that supports them," he said. "Any kind of work interruption on that scale, when the whole union goes on strike, is significant to not only the workers, but their families as well. Because when they go on strike, it's no work and no pay.
"They get a $500-a-week stipend, but compared to what they are used to it's going to hurt them in the wallet, and we don't want that for them."
The city has established, with the union, five locations where people can strike.
In Kentucky
Neither the Kentucky Truck Plant nor Louisville Assembly Plant has been called to strike, the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
Autoworkers who remain in non-striking plants, including Louisville, are working under an expired contract. Fain said the automakers' management cannot change the terms and conditions of work under the expired contract.
In Louisville, UAW Local 862 represents about 12,000 workers at Kentucky Truck Plant and Louisville Assembly Plant. The UAW also represents General Motors workers in Bowling Green, where the Chevrolet Corvette is produced.
In Wisconsin
Although there are no longer Detroit Three factories producing cars in Wisconsin, Layth Alwan ― a professor of supply chain, operations management and business statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Lubar School of Business ― estimates there are about 150 suppliers in the state, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
They manufacture car parts and materials at the first, second and third tiers of the supply chain ― everything from raw materials to partially assembled vehicles. In this way, the Detroit Three still have a "footprint" in Wisconsin, he told the Journal Sentinel.
Because of Wisconsin's proximity to states that do produce cars, like Michigan and Ohio, Wisconsin manufacturers send large numbers of parts and subassemblies to automakers. But with fewer cars being produced due to the strike, fewer parts will be needed.
Alwan said the strike's impact on Wisconsin suppliers will vary, as some are more reliant on shipping parts directly to automakers while others are not.
"These suppliers in Wisconsin, at the first, second, third tier, they have different amounts of their capacity that goes directly to the auto industry," he said. "Some may be 20, 30 percent. Some might be very dependent, like 70 or 80 percent."
In Milwaukee on Friday, workers and supporters gathered outside a Stellantis parts distribution center, with one sporting a sign reading "Milwaukee is a union town."
In Illinois
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, two auto parts distribution sites in the Chicago suburbs went on strike Friday, one each for General Motors and Stellantis. The GM site is at 1355 Remington Boulevard in Bolingbrook. Stellantis’ location is at 1980 High Grove Lane in Naperville. The companies have said each location has about 100 workers.
Video from WGN News showed strikers at both suburban Chicago locations.
"This tiered wage system has to end," GM Employee Steve Gregor told WGN News Friday. "I am making less per hour than I was 23 years ago. That is just not right."
Ford was spared additional strikes because the company has met some of the union’s demands during negotiations over the past week, according to Fain. As a result, Ford’s Chicago operations — an assembly plant on the South Side and a stamping plant in Chicago Heights — are not included in the new walkouts.
In Minnesota
A facility in Plymouth, Minnesota was one of those targeted for strike action.
Education Minnesota, a teachers union, tweeted solidarity for the striking workers.
In Nevada
According to KOLO 8 News Now in Reno, Nevada, UAW workers at Local 2162 General Motors in northern Nevada have joined a nationwide strike, calling for better pay and more job security.
The Nevada State AFL-CIO tweeted in solidarity regarding the strike there, saying, "Nevada union members stand shoulder to shoulder with autoworkers."
In Texas
Two Texas locations, in Carrollton and Roanoke, were included in the list of striking facilities.
A reporter with NBC 5 tweeted a photo of workers from another shift showing up ahead of their first-shift colleagues walking off for the strike at a parts center in Roanoke.
In Mississippi
Jackson Parts Distribution in Brandon, Mississippi was one of the facilities targeted in the expanded strike.
A reporter with WAPT in Mississippi tweeted photos from the Brandon strike and said just under 100 workers would have a continued presence at the plant.
— Compiled from reports by the Nashville Tennessean, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Chicago Sun-Times, KOLO-TV, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Memphis Commercial Appeal, NBC 5, WGN News, and WAPT.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Across US, reaction to Fain's strike call is swift and strong
Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN
Fri, September 22, 2023
United Auto Workers members strike at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant on September 15, 2023 in Wayne, Michigan. This is the first time in history that the UAW is striking all three of the Big Three auto makers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, at the same time. - Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
The United Auto Workers union is expanding its strike against GM and Stellantis but said that progress in negotiations with Ford means it won’t expand the number of Ford workers on the picket lines.
UAW President Shawn Fain made the announcement on Friday morning. “At noon Eastern today, all parts distributions centers at General Motors and Stellantis will be on strike,” he said. “We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer.”
But Fain said that there has been significant improvement in offers from Ford and that is the reason the strike will not be expanded there.
“We do want to recognize that Ford is serious about reaching a deal,” he said. “Stellantis and GM in particular are going to need some serious pushing.”
The strike will now expand to GM’s and Stellantis’s 38 parts and distribution centers spread across 20 states. The distribution centers generally send parts to dealerships to be used for repairs, so the move could quickly cripple dealerships ability to do repairs, which is the most profitable part of their business.
GM said the expanded strike action was “unnecessary” but that it planned to continue bargaining in good faith.
“Today’s strike escalation by the UAW’s top leadership is unnecessary,” the company said in a statement Friday. “We have contingency plans for various scenarios and are prepared to do what is best for our business, our customers, and our dealers… We will continue to bargain in good faith with the union to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.”
Stellantis also expressed disappointment with the union’s actions.
“We question whether the union’s leadership has ever had an interest in reaching an agreement in a timely manner. They seem more concerned about pursuing their own political agendas than negotiating in the best interests of our employees and the sustainability of our US operations given the market’s fierce competition,” said the statement. “The fact is, we made a very competitive offer yesterday….And yet, we still have not received a response to that offer. We look forward to the UAW leadership’s productive engagement so that we can bargain in good faith to reach an agreement.”
Still, the announcement of progress at Ford raised hopes that the strike, at least at there, could be brought to a relatively quick end. Before Friday, there had been few public signs that the union and management of the three companies were anywhere close to an agreement.
“Ford is working diligently with the UAW to reach a deal that rewards our workforce and enables Ford to invest in a vibrant and growing future,” Ford said in a statement. “Although we are making progress in some areas, we still have significant gaps to close on the key economic issues. In the end, the issues are interconnected and must work within an overall agreement that supports our mutual success.”
The announcement comes just days after Ford reached a tentative deal with the Canadian union Unifor, which averted a strike by more than 5,000 autoworkers in that country that would have shut down its three factories there.
While the strike will continue at the three assembly lines already on strike - a Ford truck plant in Wayne, Michigan, a GM plant in Wentzville, Missouri and the Stellantis in Toledo – there will be no additional factories added, only the parts distribution centers. But that will create great pressure on GM and Stellantis from their network of dealerships. Stellantis sells cars in North America under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands.
The union had started the strike on September 15 with strikes at only three of the companies’ 25 US assembly plants, having about 12,700 of its 145,000 members at the traditional “Big Three” walk off early that morning.
About 5,625 UAW members work at the new strike targets announced on Friday. That will bring the grand total of UAW members who will be on strike to just over 18,300. And the strike will now range from coast to coast, with workers at facilities from Virginia to California walking out.
Dealerships and repair centers
The new strikes are specifically aimed at hurting dealerships.
The Big Three car dealerships are not owned by the Big Three companies themselves. Instead, they’re individual franchisees that purchase cars from the manufacturers and then sell them onto customers.
Simply selling cars isn’t how those dealerships make a lot of their money, however: The dealerships make a lot of their money from the mechanics in the service centers. Every time a car needs to be repaired, it likely needs a new part, and many drivers bring their cars right into the dealerships to be serviced especially while still under warranty.
But the UAW’s expanded strike is now targeting the parts distribution centers for GM and Stellantis. Without new parts being sent to service centers, the dealerships will soon start running out, potentially forcing them to turn away repairs for cars, and heaps of potential revenue.
United Auto Workers members and supporters rally at the Stellantis North America headquarters on September 20, 2023 in Auburn Hills, Michigan. - Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Without that additional revenue pouring in, the dealership owners themselves could start ratcheting up the pressure on GM and Stellantis to start making concessions to their workers, much in the way Ford has.
Ford, which has made concessions on everything from eliminating wage tiers to job security, will see its dealership service centers likely operating as normal.
Inflation, previous concessions
This is the first time the union has struck all of the Big Three automakers at the same time. Traditionally it has picked one company at a time as a target for its job actions. And most often, it has had all the workers at that company going on strike at the same time.
The union insists it is better to go with this new strategy of targeted strikes that disrupt operations but raised the possibility of additional action in the future if the companies do not meet their demands.
During Friday’s announcement, Fain made reference to “maintaining our flexibility and our leverage to escalate as we need to.”
Shawn Fain speaking on Facebook Live on September 22, 2023. - From UAW International Union/Facebook
The union began negotiations demanding an immediate 20% raise for its members and a total of 40% in wage hikes during the four-year life of the contract.
It also wants to roll back a number of the concessions the union gave up during negotiations in 2007 and 2009 when Ford was nearly out of cash and GM and Stellantis predecessor Chrysler were both on their way to bankruptcy and federal bailouts.
Among those concessions it wants reversed: The UAW wants the companies to offer traditional pension plans and retiree health care for workers hired since 2007, which are now only available to more senior employees. It is also demanding a resumption of cost of living adjustments to protect workers from rising prices, as well as the end of a lower tier of wages and benefits for workers hired since 2007.
Heading into Friday, the companies are on record each offering raises of about 20% during the life of the contract, including immediate raises of about 10%.
But despite the companies making record or near-record profits, they say the union demands are not affordable and would place them at a severe competitive disadvantage compared to their nonunion rivals, including Tesla and foreign automakers operating US plants.
CNN’s Mike Ballaban contributed reporting
Nora Naughton
Fri, September 22, 2023
United Auto Workers members march through downtown Detroit on September 15, 2023.AP Photo/Paul Sancya
The UAW is adding more GM and Stellantis plants to its strike.
Targeted work stoppages allow the union to slowly use its $825 million strike fund.
Ford, GM, and Stellantis have expressed displeasure with the strategy.
The United Auto Workers union is changing the way bargaining works in Detroit.
The union's historic strike at all three of the Detroit car companies implements a new strategy, in which Ford, GM, and Stellantis are forced to compete against each other at the bargaining table.
At the same time, the UAW is slowly rolling out targeted work stoppages in a surprise-attack approach that allows the union to use strikes as leverage — while only slowly dipping into its $825 million strike fund it uses to pay workers in lieu of their regular paycheck.
Workers at three assembly plants have been on strike for a week, and the latest escalation came Friday when UAW President Shawn Fain said 38 GM and Stellantis plants in 20 states would be joining the walkout. Fain is targeting GM and Stellantis specifically because he's unhappy with their offers in comparison to progress made at Ford since the strike began.
"To be clear, we're not done at Ford," Fain said Friday. "But we do want to recognize that Ford is showing that they're serious about reaching a deal. At GM and Stellantis, it's a different story."
The UAW's decision to target GM and Stellantis with parts depot walkouts that will cripple production while sparing Ford is the union's first move in using its unique strike strategy to pit the Detroit 3 against each other. Leaked messages from the union's communications director, first reported by The Detroit News, more clearly illustrate this plan.
"We're breaking pattern and they're bargaining against each other for the first time in 70 years," UAW communications director Jonah Furman wrote in a private group on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter. The messages were reviewed and confirmed by Insider. "We can calibrate it exactly to their moves at the table. If Ford and GM won't move but Stellantis will, we can spare them."
After Furman's messages leaked Thursday night, the Detroit car companies expressed their displeasure with the union's strategy. Ford and Stellantis called the messages "disappointing" and "disturbing," while GM said the message "calls into question who is actually in charge of UAW strategy."
The union didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, but told The Detroit News the messages were "private."
Why the UAW is breaking pattern
For most of the UAW's 88-year history, the union has engaged in pattern bargaining with the three Detroit companies to avoid competition at the table. In the past, the UAW has chosen a "lead company" to complete negotiations with and then taken the first completed contract to the other two companies as a guide for completing a deal.
This more aggressive strategy comes as the UAW is fighting to reignite its relevance in a revived labor movement after years of declining membership and a yearslong criminal probe that eroded trust with union leaders.
Fain and workers Insider spoke with on the picket line have said the UAW's fight is bigger than the Detroit three. The UAW president is decidedly taking on a larger fight between the working class and their wealthy employers, previously saying in a now-viral clip that, in his opinion, billionaires "don't have a right to exist."
The hope of Fain and his members is to reset the standard for work in automotive manufacturing.
Targeted strikes allow for longevity
Fain had been hinting at the historic strategy to strike all three companies at once since the start of bargaining this summer. The idea was met with skepticism by many, who said that an all-out strike would quickly drain the UAW's strike resources.
Enter the UAW's targeted strategy. The first week of the strike at three assembly factories in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri cost the union an estimated $6.5 million, according to Deutsche Bank. That leaves plenty in the union's $825 million strike fund as the work stoppage expands Friday.
This kind of longevity in the strike is important for the UAW, as their opponents on the other side of the table have every reason to dig their heels in.
Ford, GM, and Stellantis – whose labor costs are already higher than most of the industry – are each spending billions of dollars to electrify their lineups and must weigh costly R&D expenses in the future with these increased labor costs.
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