United Auto Staff (UAW) members on a picket line outside the Stellantis NV Toledo Assembly Complex in Toldeo, Ohio, US, on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023.
Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty Images
General Motors and Stellantis said that they’ve laid off additional employees due to consequences related to the United Auto Staff strike.
GM said in an announcement on Wednesday that it has halted production at its assembly plant in Fairfax, Kansas, due to a “shortage of critical stampings” that will have been supplied by its factory in Wentzville, Missouri, where employees went on strike last week. About 2,000 employees are affected.
Earlier on Wednesday, Stellantis said that it’s shedding about 370 employees at three parts factories in Ohio and Indiana immediately resulting from “storage constraints,” also related to the strike. The plants make parts for Jeep vehicles built on the automaker’s Toledo Assembly Complex, where employees are also on strike.
UAW-represented employees walked out of the Wentzville and Toledo assembly plants , in addition to a Ford Motor factory in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit, on Sep. 15 after the three automakers failed to achieve a deal on a recent contract with the union.
GM’s Fairfax Assembly plant builds the Chevrolet Malibu sedan and Cadillac XT4 crossover. GM said that due to strike, the two,000 employees laid off from Fairfax is not going to be eligible for the supplemental unemployment advantages that its laid-off employees would normally receive.
“We’ve said repeatedly that no person wins in a strike,” GM said in an announcement. “What happened to our Fairfax team members is a transparent and immediate demonstration of that fact. We’ll proceed to bargain in good faith with the union to achieve an agreement as quickly as possible.”
Nearly 13,000 GM, Ford and Stellantis employees are on strike on the Wentzville, Toledo and Wayne plants. UAW President Shawn Fain said the union would announce more strikes Friday unless there’s “serious progress” in negotiations.
