The local chapters of the UAW are currently preparing their members to strike.
Fain has characterized the contract talks with Detroit automakers as a form of war between billionaires and ordinary middle-class workers. Last month, in an act of showmanship during a Facebook Live event, Fain condemned a contract proposal from Stellantis as “trash” — and tossed a copy of it into a wastebasket, “where it belongs,” he said.
Over the past decade, the Detroit Three have emerged as robust profit-makers. They’ve collectively posted net income of $164 billion over the past decade, $20 billion of it this year. The CEOs of all three major automakers earn multiple millions in annual compensation. Speaking last month to Ford workers at a plant in Louisville, Kentucky, Fain complained about one standard for the corporate class and another for ordinary workers. “They get out-of-control salaries,” he said. “They get pensions they don’t even need. They get top-rate health care. They work whatever schedule they want. The majority of our members do not get a pension nowadays. It’s crazy. We get substandard health care. We don’t get to work remotely.” The union is asking for a 46% pay raise, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay and a restoration of traditional pensions. The demands that a more combative United Auto Workers union has pressed on General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — demands that even the UAW’s own president calls “audacious” — are edging it closer to a strike when its contract ends Sept. 14. The automakers, which are making billions in profits, have dismissed the UAW’s wish list. They argue that its demands are unrealistic at a time of fierce competition from Tesla and lower-wage foreign automakers as the world shifts from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. The wide gulf between the sides could mean a strike against one or more of the automakers, which could send already-inflated vehicle prices even higher.
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