DETROIT – The United Auto Workers on Tuesday added General Motors’ largest assembly plant to its nationwide auto strike as the union works to put even more pressure on the Big Three to reach an agreement amid the strike’s sixth week.
About 5,000 UAW autoworkers walked out from GM’s Arlington Assembly plant in Texas on Tuesday, Oct. 24, taking the automaker’s “biggest moneymaker” offline, the union announced. The move comes just hours after the UAW called for a strike at Sterling Heights Assembly, Stellantis’ largest plant, adding another 6,800 workers to the strike then.
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Earlier this month, the union announced a strike at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant, the company’s most profitable facility. That means as of Tuesday, the union is striking at each of the Big Three’s largest plants in an effort to advance negotiations by significantly affecting the companies’ bottom lines.
The auto strike that began on Sept. 15 with three facilities and a few thousand workers has gradually grown over the past six weeks, and now includes more than 45,000 UAW-represented autoworkers. The union initially began the strike by closing down facilities that make midsize pickup trucks, SUVs, and commercial vans, but has moved into bigger territory in recent weeks, taking offline major facilities that produce the automakers’ most profitable vehicles, like pickup trucks and large SUVs.
GM’s Arlington Assembly plant makes some of the company’s most profitable vehicles, including the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, and Cadillac Escalade. The plant faced a strike earlier this month, but the company avoided that strike by making a last-minute, but major, concession: GM has agreed to include electric vehicle battery production in its national contract with the UAW, essentially unionizing those facilities in a major win for autoworkers uncertain about their place in an EV-focused future.
But while that concession helped GM stay on the union’s good side for a few weeks, avoiding additional strike action during that time, it wasn’t enough to appease the UAW for long. In fact, union leaders are amping up the pressure with more severe strike action at a time when negotiations appeared to be making progress and gaining momentum.
The Oct. 11 decision to strike at Ford’s major Kentucky plant -- which makes the Ford Super Duty line of pickups, Ford Expeditions and the Lincoln Navigator -- was made after the automaker reportedly made the same economic offer to the union that it had two weeks prior. UAW President Shawn Fain told Local 4 that the company had made “really no progress” in recent weeks, which made union leaders feel they had no option but to escalate the strike.
The automaker’s Kentucky plant reportedly generates $25 billion in revenue annually. Ford was upset by the decision, and has not provided any new offers to the company since, according to the union. But rather than take that standstill as a warning, the UAW has opted to put the same pressure on the remainder of the Big Three.
On Monday, Oct. 23, autoworkers walked off the job at Stellantis’ Sterling Heights Assembly plant -- which makes RAM pickup trucks -- after the union determined the company’s latest offer, made the previous Thursday, was not good enough. According to Fain, the automaker is the most profitable of the Big Three, but had the “worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression, temporary worker pay and conversion to full-time, cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), and more.”
The union added GM’s biggest facility to the strike on Tuesday, citing the “shortcomings” in the company’s latest contract offer, and its $3.5 billion in third-quarter earnings that were reported Monday.
“Despite having made $10 billion in profits in the past nine months, breaking revenue records for another consecutive quarter, and beating Wall Street expectations, GM’s latest offer fails to reward UAW members for the profits they’ve generated,” the UAW’s announcement reads, in part. “... On the heels of their previous quarter, which set ‘a post-bankruptcy record’ in terms of revenue, it is clear that GM can afford a record contract and do more to repair the harm done by years of falling real wages and declining standards across the Big Three.”
Fain reported last Friday that the union’s negotiations with GM and Stellantis had made “serious movement,” and that the companies had “put a lot more money on the table” last week. Still, the union chief said there was much more progress to be made, and that the sides were still far apart on some of the union’s demands, including cost of living allowances (COLA), job security and more.
While remaining critical of Ford, the union announced Tuesday that GM “lags behind Ford” with its latest offer, effectively declaring that “serious movement” insufficient. Last week, the union said GM’s position was “worrying.”
Despite the surprise strikes that will certainly generate frustration among the Big Three, Fain maintains that he and the union want to see the strike end -- but not before they achieve their desired contracts.
The UAW has maintained for months that its goal is to secure a “record contract” for autoworkers amid the companies’ recent “record profits” -- and carmakers argue the latest offers they’ve made would be considered “record” offers. Last week, Fain conceded that the offers on the table are “record” contracts, but said they still aren’t good enough following concessions made by autoworkers during and after the Great Recession.
“There is more to be won,” Fain said. “One thing we’ve been hearing over and over from these companies is how they’ve offered us record contracts. They stole that line from us, by the way, and you know what? We agree. These are already record contracts, but they come at the end of decades of record decline, so it’s not enough to be the best-ever when autoworkers have gone backwards over the last two decades. That’s a very low bar.
“I also find it a pathetic irony that every time they make an offer, it’s the best they can do, it’s a record offer, and then two days later, there’s a new record. What that should tell you is there’s room to move.”
Amid all the tension, though, Fain did say last Friday that the bargaining has reached its “last mile,” indicating that a resolution is on the horizon.
“The bottom line is we’ve got cards left to play, and they’ve got money left to spend. That’s the hardest part of a strike. Right before a deal is when there’s the most aggressive push for that last mile,” Fain said. “They just want to wait us out. They want division. They want fear. They want uncertainty, and what we have is our solidarity.”
---> From Friday: UAW strike update: ‘Serious movement’ with Stellantis, GM, but ‘there is more to be won’