United Auto Staff members attend a solidarity rally because the UAW strikes the Big Three automakers on September 15, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images
Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed striking autoworkers in Detroit on Friday, calling on working people across the U.S. to face in solidarity with the walkout.
Sanders called out General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares and Ford CEO Jim Farley, all of whom revamped $20 million last 12 months, about their pay.
“It’s time so that you can end your greed,” Sanders said. “It’s time so that you can treat your employees with the respect and dignity they deserve. It’s time to sit down down and negotiate a good contract.”
The independent senator from Vermont has promoted the strikes as a pivotal moment in a broader campaign to lift living standards for working people across the U.S.
“Allow us to stand together to finish corporate greed, allow us to stand together to rebuild the disappearing middle class, allow us to create an economy that works for all, not only the one percent,” Sanders said.
“Allow us to all, every American, in every state on this country stand with the UAW,” the senator said.
Nearly 13,000 United Auto Staff members went on strike Friday after the union and the large three automobile manufacturers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — failed to achieve an agreement Thursday night.
Staff are targeting three key plants in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. The strikes are the primary time within the labor movement’s history that GM, Ford and Stellantis have been targeted at the identical time.
Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, made income inequality the central focus of his two unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, drawing large crowds at rallies together with his uncompromising attacks against corporate America.
Sanders took the helm of the powerful Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in February. In one in every of his first acts as chair, he threatened to subpoena Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz over allegations of union busting.
Sanders said Friday that UAW staff were fighting to bring back the times when unionized automobile jobs were the gold standard for the center class.
“When you might have auto staff who cannot afford to purchase the cars they make, that’s bad for the economy,” the senator said.
UAW President Shawn Fain said earlier Friday that striking staff are “fighting for the justice of the working class.” He accused the automakers of “price-gouging” consumers, “ripping off” the taxpayer and “shortchanging” staff.
President Joe Biden, who has sought to closely ally himself with the labor movement, was more measured in remarks delivered Friday but he called on the automakers to make sure “record corporate profits mean record contracts” for his or her staff.
The UAW is demanding a 40% hourly wage increase, a 32-hour workweek, the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, a return to traditional pensions, and the elimination of compensation tiers, amongst other demands.
Ford said the union’s demands would greater than double the automaker’s labor costs and place the corporate at a competitive drawback in comparison with non-unionized automotive corporations corresponding to Tesla and foreign manufacturers like Toyota.
Barra said she was “extremely frustrated and disillusioned” with the strikes.
