On Friday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union launched its strike at three plants. The walkout includes union members at General Motors (GM) in Wentzville, Missouri, the Ford Assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan, and the Stelantis Assembly Complex in Toledo, Ohio, where the Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator are manufactured, formerly known as Fiat Chrysler.
According to NPR, this is the first time the UAW is simultaneously striking against the top three automakers. The union “failed to clinch a deal on a new contract by 11:59 p.m. deadline on Thursday, September 14, 2023.”
Despite walking off the Big Three automakers at once, only a fraction of the 150,000 union members joined the strike.
Under UAW President Shawn Fain’s “stand up strike” plan, only 13,000 workers, or less than 9% of the UAW membership at the three factories, walked off the job.
NPR reports, “But additional locations could follow at a moment’s notice, depending on how bargaining with the companies progresses.”
Fain’s strategy is to increase “the pressure on companies by keeping them guessing about how their operations would be disrupted.” Danielle Kaye for NPR says Fain’s plan is reminiscent of the six-week sit-down strike against General Motors in 1937.
According to the Library of Congress, the workers physically occupied the GM plant in Flint, Michigan. They refused to end their strike until “General Motors agreed to recognize the UAW as the sole bargaining agent in all GM plants.” When General Motors agreed, their decision changed industrial and labor history.
Factors Leading to the 2023 Strike
During an MSNBS broadcast, Chris Hayes spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) about the situation and shared clips of UAW members discussing their thoughts on the negotiations.
Fain said, “Car makers could double our wages, not raise prices, and still make billions of dollars in profit.”
“They want to scare Americans into thinking that auto workers are the problem. We’re not the problem.” He went on to say that corporate greed is a problem.
Senator Sanders, the chair of the committee that oversees labor and pensions, agrees with the UAW.
He told Hayes that he wants the workers to get the contract they deserve. He complained that the corporate media had not fully covered the lead-up to the strike.
“In reality,” Sanders explained, “over the last 20 years, real wages for automobile workers [have decreased] by 30% when you account for inflation.” Nonetheless, CEOs have seen significant increases in their salaries.
Fortune indicates that the CEO of Stallantis, Carlos Tavares, earns $25 million compared to his average employee’s wages of $68,000. GM CEO Mary Barra made $29 million. That’s 361 times her typical employee’s last year.
Finally, Ford CEO Jim Farley’s salary equaled 281 employees’ earnings in 2022. His salary is $21 million.
The UAW demands a 40% increase, equal to the percentage the Big Three CEOs saw during the last four years.
Furthermore, the past three years of inflation “is especially galling for autoworkers, who agreed to give up automatic cost-of-living increases in 2008 when two of the Big Three filed for bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the government.”
Written by Cathy Milne-Ware
Sources:
CNN: UAW workers launch unprecedented strike against all Big Three automakers; by Chris Isadore and Vanessa Yurkevich
NPR: The UAW launches a historic strike against all Big 3 automakers; By Danielle Kaye
MSNBC YouTube Video ‘Disgusting’: Bernie Sanders reacts to comments from millionaire CEO, applauds unions [Video Link]
Library of Congress: “The many and the few: a chronicle of the dynamic auto workers” by Henry Kraus; Published by Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Fortune Magazine: The UAW’s Shawn Fain wants to wreck ‘the billionaire class’ as analysis reveals Ford, GM, and Stellantis CEOs make at least 281 times their average employee; By Paige Hagy
All Images by Image by Adam Schultz Courtesy of Joe Biden’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
