DETROIT – 1000’s of members of the United Auto Staff went on strike at three U.S. assembly plants of General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, after the union and the automakers failed to achieve a deal on a recent labor contract Thursday night.
“The UAW Stand Up Strike begins in any respect three of the Big Three,” the union said in a post on X, the positioning formerly generally known as Twitter, just after midnight Friday.
The facilities are GM’s midsize truck and full-size van plant in Wentzville, Missouri; Ford’s Ranger midsize pickup and Bronco SUV plant in Wayne, Michigan; and Stellantis’ Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator plant in Toledo, Ohio. For Ford, UAW President Shawn Fain said only staff in paint and final assembly can be on strike.
“We got to do what we got to do to get our share of economic and social justice on this strike,” Fain said outside the Ford facility in Wayne. “We will be out here until we get our share of economic justice. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”
The chosen plants produce highly profitable vehicles for the automakers that largely proceed to be in high demand. About 12,700 staff – 5,800 at Stellantis, 3,600 at GM and three,300 at Ford – can be on strike on the plants in total, the union said. The UAW represents about 146,000 staff across Ford, GM and Stellantis.
UAW President Shawn Fain, center, talks to reporters as union members strike outside a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, Sept. 15, 2023.
CNBC | Michael Wayland
“In the event that they come to the pump and so they care for their staff, we’ll be back to work,” Fain said early Friday, referring to the automakers. “But in the event that they don’t, we’ll keep amping it up.”
The union chosen the plants as a part of targeted strike plans initially announced Wednesday night by Fain, who has unconventionally been negotiating with all three automakers without delay and has been reluctant to compromise much on the union’s demands.
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Targeted strikes typically deal with key plants that may then cause other plants to stop production resulting from an absence of parts. They will not be unprecedented, but the way in which Fain plans to conduct the work stoppages shouldn’t be typical. They include initiating targeted strikes at select plants after which potentially increasing the variety of strikes based on the status of the negotiations. Choosing assembly plants for such strikes can be unique.
“For the primary time in our history, we’ll strike all three of the ‘Big Three’ without delay,” Fain said just after 10 p.m. ET Thursday in live remarks streamed on Facebook and YouTube. “We’re using a recent strategy, the ‘stand-up’ strike. We’ll call on select facilities, locals or units to rise up and go on strike.”
Fain has referred to the union’s plans as a “stand-up strike,” a nod to historic “sit-down” strikes by the UAW within the Thirties.
Key proposals from the union have included 40% hourly pay increases, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, the elimination of compensation tiers and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), amongst other items on the table including enhanced retiree advantages and enhanced vacation and family leave advantages.
By late Thursday, it was clear there would not be a deal, whilst President Joe Biden got involved. The White House said Biden, who boasts of his blue-collar background and support for organized labor, talked with Fain and the leaders of the Detroit automakers. The president was set to make public remarks on the strike Friday.
Ford, in an announcement Thursday night, said the UAW presented its “first substantive counterproposal” to 4 of the corporate’s offers, however it “showed little movement from the union’s initial demands.”
“If implemented, the proposal would greater than double Ford’s current UAW-related labor costs, that are already significantly higher than the labor costs of Tesla, Toyota and other foreign-owned automakers in america that utilize non-union-represented labor,” Ford said. “The union made clear that unless we agreed to its unsustainable terms, it plans a piece stoppage at 11:59 p.m. eastern.”
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Friday morning that she was “extremely frustrated and disenchanted” in regards to the strike.
The automakers have made record proposals that address among the UAW’s ambitious demands but not all of them. Specifically, the businesses have offered wage increases of roughly 20%, COLA, altered profit-sharing bonuses, and enhanced vacation and family leave enhancements that the union has found inadequate.
“We didn’t should be here,” Barra told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau.
