DETROIT – With a contract deadline between the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers union only three weeks away, 97% of UAW members have voted to authorize a strike, should leaders decide to call one.
Union officials announced the figure the morning of Friday, Aug. 25, one day after local strike authorization votes were supposed to be completed and counted. The vote count comes three weeks before the expiration of the UAW’s contracts with Ford Motor Company, General Motors and Stellantis.
Talks have been underway for weeks, and newly elected UAW President Shawn Fain said Friday that bargaining is still moving slowly, despite the approaching Sept. 14 deadline. Earlier this month, Fain said that talks had not yet gotten to wages and other economic issues.
Since being elected this year in the union’s first-ever direct election, Fain has firmly held his position seeking better pay and working conditions for the 150,000 auto workers represented by the UAW. He’s set high expectations and has continuously denounced the Big Three’s approach to the quadrennial negotiations, making a strike seem more and more likely this year as tensions rise.
With 97% of auto workers in favor of strike authorization, leaders will have the ability to call a strike in the near future -- but that doesn’t necessarily mean a strike is imminent; just possible. Strike authorization votes are procedural, and often overwhelmingly approved.
If a strike is called, it’s unclear which of the Big Three companies will be targeted, or perhaps targeted first. Though Fain has been most outspoken against Stellantis during the bargaining process, citing the company’s higher profit margins, he said last week that he purposely hasn’t picked a target in an effort to encourage all three companies to bargain at once.
The UAW is requesting 40% general pay raises over four years, an end to wage tiers, restoration of pensions for new hires, cost-of-living increases, and more benefits. Fain claims auto workers are being exploited and unfairly compensated for their work, declaring the Big Three automakers’ “record profits deserve record contracts” for UAW members.
Big Three leaders say they face billions of dollars in developmental costs as they shift to prioritizing electric vehicles. But auto workers are particularly concerned about what EV production means for their future, since the vehicles require fewer people to make them -- though EV auto workers require more thorough training.
Despite the major investment in the EV transition, Fain claims Big Three executives make “hundreds of times more than what our average worker makes; some of them 400 times what our average worker makes.”
“The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs,” Fain said in a statement.
The UAW calculates that the Big Three made a combined total of $21 billion in profit in the first half of 2023. President Fain also said the companies made a combined $250 billion in American profits in the last 10 years.
During a news briefing Friday, Fain said that he requested Ford, GM and Stellantis to “come to the table next week with their counter proposals to our demands.” Union leaders say the union doesn’t want to strike, but is willing to achieve their desired contract “by any means necessary.”
If the UAW strikes, it will be the first time since 2019, when auto workers struck at GM. UAW members held a practice picket earlier this week in Detroit.
---> Will the UAW strike? Here’s what we know as votes on strike authorization wrap up