Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), has decided to take a new approach to putting pressure on the Big Three of the US auto industry. In an intervention broadcast this Friday on social networks, Fain announced that the strike is expanding to two more assembly plants, one of General Motors (GM) in Lansing (Michigan) and one of Ford in Chicago (Illinois), in which employ 7,000 union workers. At the new factories, the strike affects facilities with a total of around 25,000 employees. The UAW union has 146,000 members in these three groups in the United States.
The union leader pointed out that the interlocutors had been “negotiating day and night” over the last week, but that there had been insufficient progress in reaching a “record agreement that reflects the record profits” of the three companies. Fain’s appearance was delayed by 25 minutes due to a last-minute offer from Stellantis that spared him this additional round of strikes, as he announced in a speech from Detroit, dressed in a red polo shirt (the color of war). of the strike). The UAW had planned to also call a Stellantis factory on strike, but this last-minute offer, which was not explained, prevented that.
“I want to make it clear that the negotiations have not failed. We are still in discussions with all three companies. And I still very much hope that we can reach an agreement that reflects the incredible sacrifices and contributions our members have made over the last decade. But I also know that the success we gain at the bargaining table depends on the power we build in the workplace. “It’s time to use that power,” Fain said. “That’s why I’m calling on an additional 7,000 Ford and GM members to strike starting at noon today,” he added. The two affected factories are Ford’s Chicago, Illinois, which makes the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator, and GM’s Lansing Delta plant in Lansing, Michigan, which assembles the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse.
It is a new step in its strategy of selective and gradual pressure, which aims to keep companies on tenterhooks until the last moment and to reward and punish companies based on the negotiations. Fain will announce shortly who will join the strike, in which the union is demanding salary improvements, the abolition of the double pay scale and ensuring a fair transition to electric cars.
The strike began two weeks ago with the closure of a General Motors plant in Wentzville, Missouri, that makes the GMC Canyon and Colorado; another from Ford in Wayne, Michigan, where the Bronco model and the Ranger truck are assembled, and a third from Jeep, from Stellantis, in Toledo, Ohio, where the Gladiator and Wrangler models come from. In total they employ around 14,000 people. Last Friday, he called on about 6,000 more workers from 28 Stellantis and GM distribution centers in 20 states to resign, saving Ford from burning because it had shown greater willingness to negotiate.
This week, striking workers received an unusual visit from United States President Joe Biden at a picket line at a General Motors plant in Belville, Michigan. “Stay firm,” he urged them, megaphone in hand, alongside Fain himself, who pointed out this Friday: “I want to make one thing clear about the president’s historic visit.” The most powerful man in the world showed up for only one reason : Our solidarity is the most powerful force in the world. “If we stand united for economic and social justice, there is nothing we cannot do,” he said.
On Wednesday, it was Donald Trump who held a rally at a non-union factory in Clinton Township, outside Detroit. Trump tried to ridicule Biden and the electric car. The Detroit News claims that some of the workers who carried signs supporting the former president with slogans like “Union Workers with Trump” and “The UAW with Trump” were not, in fact, union workers or members of the UAW.
For many workers in the industry, this is the first strike in decades. In addition, for the first time, the UAW union decided to attack the Detroit Big Three simultaneously, albeit gradually and selectively. It is a conflict between workers trying to hold on to the middle class from which they are being pushed out while companies make record profits and pay their top managers multimillion-dollar salaries. This came after years of loss of purchasing power due to high inflation and worker concessions during the financial crisis, when the profitability of large companies was threatened.
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