The UAW went on strike against all three of Detroit’s biggest automakers at midnight as its contracts expired, with the first picket lines in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri.
The strike comes as the union and the Big Three remain far apart on wages, benefits and worker schedules after weeks of acrimonious talks. The union is demanding a wage increase of 36 percent over four years, while the carmakers have boosted their offers to between 17.
5 percent and 20 percent over four and a half years. The union’s president, Shawn Fain, has called those offers inadequate after years of sharp inflation and fat corporate profits and executive pay.This is our generation’s defining moment,” Fain said in a Facebook Live address to union members on Thursday night, less than two hours before the deadline. “The money is there. The cause is righteous. The world is watching. And th UAW is ready to stand up.”Fain said the union would initially stop work at targeted locations at each company, in what he called a “stand-up strike,” and broaden the action to additional factories if talks remain unsuccessful. It’s the first time the union has launched a strike of any size on all three companies at the same time. The last national auto strike was against General Motors in 2019. At the Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, workers cheered “we are on strike," at the stroke of midnight. Adelisa LeBron, a striking Ford employee who works on the engine line at the Michigan Assembly, said she’s on strike, because as a single mother she can’t afford to support to her kids without a second job. LeBron brought her mother — who also works for Ford — and daughter to the picket line on Friday morning. LeBron makes $24 an hour after two years at the facility. “As a single parent, I’m working paycheck to paycheck,” LeBron said. “I love the way Shawn is fighting for us, how he’s not going to settle.Alarmed by the possibility of a broad work stoppage in an industry that makes up about 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the White House has been urging all sides to come to a deal.spoke with Fain and the executives of the auto companies on Thursday, a White House spokesman said. The White House is preparing economic measures to protect suppliers to the auto industry from long-term damage, concerned that they will be particularly vulnerable in any strike, according to three people aware of internal conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. The automakers have stressed that they are striving to negotiate a fair deal, with bigger wage hikes than they have offered in years. But they have said they can’t meet all of the union’s demands and still remain viable. Those demands include a 32-hour workweek, defined-benefit pensions for all workers instead of 401 accounts, and company-financed health care in retirement.Ford chief executive Jim Farley on Thursday said that had the company provided such a package to its workers over the past four years, it would have racked up losses of $15 billion and “gone bankrupt by now.”. “You want us to choose bankruptcy over supporting our workers? Here’s our proposal — let’s work through this.” Farley this week also accused the union of staging “PR events” and failing to respond to Ford’s latest offer, which he described as the most generous from the company in 80 years. The union is planning a rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Detroit on Friday evening. Late Thursday, Ford said the UAW had finally responded to the company’s offer but had shown “little movement” in its position.2023 has already been one of the biggest years for strikes in recent history. More than 353,000 workers in the United States have walked off the job to demand higher wages, according to Bloomberg Law’s database of work stoppages. That includes 180,000 Hollywood actors and screenwriters who have been on strike for months, the largest work stoppage since 1997.At the UAW, striking workers will stop receiving wages from the companies and get paid $500 a week out of the UAW’s strike fund instead. Ford officials on Thursday cautioned that workers in nonstriking plants will also be hurt if a location that lacks parts from striking plants is forced to halt production. In that case, many of those workers will be sent on temporary unemployment, in line with Ford’s usual policy when plants are idled over a lack of parts, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations. The Stellantis plant in Toledo makes Jeep Wranglers and Jeep Gladiators, and it employs 4,174 hourly workers, according to
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