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UAW
members
walk the
picket
line at
the Ford
Michigan
Assembly
Plant in
Wayne,
Mich.,
Tuesday,
Sept.
26,
2023.
(Photo
by
Montez
Miller/Tell
Us USA
News
Network) |
| |
UAW to
announce
plans
for
Friday
Sept 29
to
expand
strike
in
contract
dispute
with
companies
By
DAVID
KOENIG,
TOM
KRISHER
apnews.com
DETROIT
- The
United
Auto
Workers
union
says it
will
announce
on
Friday
how it
plans to
expand
its
strike
against
Detroit’s
three
automakers.
The
union
says
President
Shawn
Fain
will
make the
announcement
at 10
a.m.
Eastern
time in
a video
appearance
addressing
union
members.
Additional
walkouts
will
take
place at
noon
Friday
without
serious
progress
in
contract
talks,
the
union
said.
The
union
went on
strike
Sept. 14
when it
couldn’t
reach
agreements
on new
contracts
with
Ford,
General
Motors
and Jeep
maker
Stellantis.
At
first it
targeted
one
assembly
plant
from
each
company,
and last
week it
added 38
parts
distribution
centers
run by
GM and
Stellantis.
Ford was
spared
the
second
escalation
because
talks
with the
union
were
progressing.
The
union
wouldn’t
say what
action
it would
take on
Friday,
reiterating
that all
options
are on
the
table.
The
union is
scheduled
to meet
with GM
negotiators
Wednesday
afternoon,
according
to two
people
with
direct
knowledge
of the
talks
who
spoke on
condition
of
anonymity
because
they
were not
authorized
to speak
on the
record.
Fain
said
Tuesday
that
negotiations
were
moving
slowly
and the
union
would
add
facilities
to the
strike
to turn
up the
pressure
on the
automakers.
“We’re
moving
with all
three
companies
still.
It’s
slower,”
Fain
said
after
talking
to
workers
on a
picket
line
near
Detroit
with
President
Joe
Biden.
“It’s
bargaining.
Some
days you
feel
like you
make two
steps
forward,
the next
day you
take a
step
back.
Things
are
moving.
We just
have to
see,” he
said.
So
far the
union
has let
the
companies
keep
making
pickup
trucks
and
large
SUVs,
their
top-selling
and most
profitable
vehicles.
It has
shut
down
assembly
plants
in
Missouri,
Ohio and
Michigan
that
make
midsize
pickup
trucks,
commercial
vans and
midsize
SUVs,
all of
which
are
profitable
but
don’t
make as
much
money as
the
larger
vehicles.
Marick
Masters,
a
business
professor
at Wayne
State
University
in
Detroit,
said
Wednesday
that the
union is
likely
to go
after
the
pickup
and SUV
factories
as it
tries to
squeeze
the
companies
into
making
better
offers.
It also
could
shut
down
selected
component
factories
such as
transmissions
that
would
eventually
force
the
companies
to halt
assembly
plants.
Masters
doesn’t
think
Fain
will
announce
that the
whole
union
will go
on
strike
yet. “I
think he
probably
wants to
give
himself
one or
two more
moves
beyond
this,”
Masters
said.
Fain
also is
likely
to limit
the
strikes
at
companies
where
negotiations
are
progressing,
but
escalate
them
further
at
companies
where
talks
are
moving
more
slowly,
Masters
said.
In
past
years
the
union
has
picked
one
company
as a
potential
strike
target
and
reached
a
contract
agreement
with
that
company
that
would
serve as
a
pattern
for the
others.
But
this
year
Fain
introduced
a new
strike
method
of
targeting
only
part of
the
companies’
plants,
with
plans to
add more
in an
effort
to get
the
automakers
to raise
their
offers.
Currently
only
about
12% of
the
union’s
146,000
workers
at the
three
automakers
are on
strike,
allowing
it to
preserve
a strike
fund
that was
worth
$825
million
before
Sept.
14.
If
all of
the
union’s
auto
workers
went on
strike,
the fund
would be
depleted
in less
than
three
months,
and
that’s
without
factoring
in
health
care
costs.
____
Koenig
reported
from
Dallas.
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