{"id":1213615,"date":"2023-09-15T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/09\/united-auto-workers-strike-shawn-fain-big-three-automakers\/"},"modified":"2023-09-17T09:45:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T09:45:38","slug":"the-united-auto-workers-strike-has-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/09\/15\/the-united-auto-workers-strike-has-begun\/","title":{"rendered":"The United Auto Workers Strike Has Begun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

The UAW launched a historic strike this morning, with workers at three plants across the Big Three walking out and UAW leader Shawn Fain declaring that an \"all-out strike is possible.\" It\u2019s the first time ever the union has struck all three major automakers.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Supporters and workers cheer as United Auto Workers members go on strike at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant on September 15, 2023 in Wayne, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano \/ Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Tick, tock. At midnight the clock ran out, and autoworkers massed on picket lines.<\/p>\n

The first-ever simultaneous strike at the Big Three automakers \u2014 General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis \u2014 started September 15 with thirteen thousand workers walking out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. There are 146,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) members at the Big Three.<\/p>\n

The UAW is calling its strategy the \u201cstand-up strike,\u201d a nod to the Flint sit-down strike of 1936\u20131937 that helped establish the union.<\/p>\n

The shot across the bow came two hours shy of midnight via a very short\u00a0Facebook Live video<\/a> where UAW president Shawn Fain shared the strike targets: Stellantis\u2019s Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio; GM\u2019s Wentzville Assembly Center, near St Louis in Missouri; and the final assembly and paint departments at Ford\u2019s Michigan Assembly Plant, west of Detroit. These plants make highly profitable full-sized SUVs and trucks, including the Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Colorado, and Ford Bronco.<\/p>\n

Fain laid out the union\u2019s escalation strategy on Wednesday. The union will target a few plants at first, letting the Big Three know the union is willing to inflict financial pain.<\/p>\n

The idea is to keep the companies guessing. If they don\u2019t move on the union\u2019s demands, more pain will be applied \u2014 but the companies won\u2019t be able to predict where.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn all-out strike is still a possibility,\u201d Fain said.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

On Pins and Needles<\/h2>\n \n

Some members who\u2019d been expecting an all-out strike right away were disappointed. On Thursday, some at Toledo Assembly wore black in mourning. But as the deadline approached, regional director Dave Green was seen in town and people\u2019s spirits were buoyed as it became apparent that their plant would be one of the strike sites.<\/p>\n

A few hours before the deadline, Chris Falzone, working the evening shift at the Toledo Assembly plant, reported the scene inside. \u201cCorporate management is walking the floor, along with all the first- and second-shift management, in case of a strike,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m hearing from paint shop is that they are emptying the paint department in the Gladiator and Wrangler side in case of a strike.\u201d He was walking the floor distributing leaflets about what happens if they continue to operate under an expired contract<\/a>\u00a0at midnight.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile day-shift workers like Auston Gore, a twelve-year veteran on the assembly line and a strike captain, were waiting at home. \u201cWe\u2019re all waiting on pins and needles,\u201d Gore said. \u201cNormally, I\u2019d be going to bed right now. But I\u2019m staying up late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers at Toledo Assembly have been pinning their hopes on being selected to strike, because they expect that management will resort to a campaign of terror against the workers who stay on the shop floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company puts up a facade that they care about their employees, telling us that we are one big family,\u201d said Gore. \u201cMeanwhile, they\u2019re going to have their supervisors walking around dinging us for the tiniest stuff if we are working under an expired contract. We feel like unprotected prey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Tuned In<\/h2>\n \n

Everyone at Michigan Assembly was tuned in to Fain\u2019s 10 p.m. livestream, Brandon Szcesniak reported, and screamed when they heard their plant named. His shift was scheduled to go until 2:30 a.m., but management told everyone to leave at 11 p.m.<\/p>\n

Szcesniak is twenty-one and has been working at the plant since he got out of high school. He makes $19.10 an hour. He’d like to have a family, but since it takes eight years to get to top pay, he\u2019d be almost thirty.<\/p>\n

He believes a strike is needed. \u201cPeople are angry,\u201d he said. “It’s like a revolving door. it\u2019s not a career anymore, it\u2019s a job. They want us to buy Fords, but how can we buy a Ford on this pay?\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who won\u2019t be striking just yet, the union was quick to inform members of their\u00a0rights<\/a> when working under an expired contract. In almost all matters the companies are required to maintain the status quo; for instance, just cause protections still apply. An exception: without a no-strike clause in effect, workers may strike at any time, and the companies may also lock them out.<\/p>\n

The guidance left many workers questioning how far they could push these rights. At the Local 2250 hall, next to GM Wentzville, members lined up with questions for officers yesterday, leading officers to close the hall to the press.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all planned to go into work tonight,\u201d said Lincoln Fegley, a picket captain on the night shift at Wentzville. \u201cBut we were mentally and physically ready to walk out if the call came.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not they struck, locals at some major plants showed they planned to put pressure on management. At GM Spring Hill, in Tennessee, \u201cour shop chairman said that he didn\u2019t want anybody to accept overtime after the deadline,\u201d said longtime production worker Kenneth Larew. \u201cIt\u2019s been at least fifteen years since local leaders coordinated No Overtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moves like that could be a serious blow for many Big Three plants, which have come to rely on extensive overtime as their turnover rate has climbed through the years of tiers and falling real wages.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Bold Demands<\/h2>\n \n

After decades of a go-along union that hollowed out wages and working conditions, the UAW under newly elected reform leadership has put forward\u00a0bold demands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The union is demanding a 40 percent wage boost and to end the tiers. Production workers hired since 2007 are on a permanent lower track where they forgo pensions and retiree health benefits. There are also multiple lower wage tiers<\/a>, such as the workers in parts distribution centers and many of those making components for\u00a0electric vehicles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Workers are also demanding a shorter workweek, the restoration of cost-of-living raises pegged to inflation, and the conversion of an even lower tier of so-called temporary workers \u2014 who can remain in that category for years \u2014 into permanent employees after ninety days.<\/p>\n

And as the auto industry undergoes seismic shifts in the transition from gas-powered to electric vehicles, workers are demanding job security: the right to strike over plant closures, and a Working Family Protection Program where laid-off workers could get paid to do community service.<\/p>\n

In response to union pressure, all three companies have offered to halve the time it takes full-time seniority workers to reach top pay, from eight years to four. That\u2019s still well shy of the union\u2019s proposal: a\u00a0 ninety-day progression to top rate.<\/p>\n

Ford has proposed to convert all current temps to full-time after ninety days \u2014 but not future temps. GM and Stellantis have proposed raising the minimum wage for temps to $20 an hour, up from the current $16.67 and $15.68, respectively, but Stellantis has not proposed a path to full-time employment for temps; at GM they are currently supposed to be converted after two years, but that\u2019s often not the reality.<\/p>\n

The companies have also proposed increases ranging from 17.5 percent to 20 percent over four years. But they\u2019ve made no movement on the union\u2019s job security proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAltogether, we are seeing movement from the companies,\u201d Fain said. \u201cBut they are still not willing to agree to the kinds of raises that will make up for inflation on top of decades of falling wages. And their proposals don\u2019t reflect the massive profits we\u2019ve generated for these companies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Escalating Strategy<\/h2>\n \n

The union\u2019s escalating strategy in this round of negotiations is a departure from 2019, when forty-six thousand workers struck GM for forty days. The company\u2019s bottom line took a $3.6 billion hit, but workers felt little was gained. The leaders of the union at that time were ready to settle cheap.<\/p>\n

This time, the union leadership looks much different and has set its sights higher. Fain and other reformers\u00a0won office<\/a>\u00a0on promises of greater transparency and militancy, in the union\u2019s first-ever direct election for top posts. Fain ran as part of the Members United slate, backed by the reform movement\u00a0Unite All Workers for Democracy<\/a>. He took office in March.<\/p>\n

Since negotiations began in July, the newly elected reform leaders of the UAW have thrown the automakers\u00a0off balance<\/a>\u00a0with an aggressive and very public approach to negotiations, symbolized by Fain\u2019s refusal to engage in the traditional handshake ceremony with company leaders to kick off bargaining; instead, he went out to greet members at the plant gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you this, I\u2019m at peace with a decision to strike if we have to, because I know that we\u2019re on the right side of this battle,\u201d Fain told more than thirty thousand viewers on Facebook Live<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a battle of the working class against the rich; the haves versus the have-nots; the billionaire class against everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

His talk melded sports analogies, verses from scripture, and precepts from the traditions of class struggle unionism.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last forty years, the billionaire class has been taking everything and leaving everybody else to fight for the scraps,\u201d Fain said. \u201cWe are not the problem. Corporate greed is the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union will hold an afternoon rally<\/a> today in Detroit with Senator Bernie Sanders. \u201cThe UAW members [are] fighting not only for themselves but against a corporate culture of arrogance, cruelty, and selfishness causing massive and unnecessary pain for the majority of working families throughout the country,\u201d Sanders wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a\u00a0Guardian<\/i> op-ed this week.<\/p>\n

Striking workers will get $500 per week strike pay \u2014 raised last year from $275 \u2014 paid from the union\u2019s $825 million strike fund. The union has also said<\/a>\u00a0it will pay strikers\u2019 health insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

Teamster carhaulers who deliver vehicles for the Big Three have vowed to refuse to deliver to dealerships during the strike. \u201cWe are 100 percent supportive of UAW workers and Shawn Fain’s positions,” Kevin Moore, president of Teamsters Local 299 in Detroit, told the\u00a0Detroit Free Press<\/i><\/a>. \u201cOur Teamsters will not cross strike lines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tick, tock. At midnight the clock ran out, and autoworkers massed on picket lines. The first-ever simultaneous strike at the Big Three automakers \u2014 General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis \u2014 started September 15 with thirteen thousand workers walking out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. There are 146,000 United Auto Workers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216962,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213615\/revisions\/1216962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}