by Bridge Michigan Staff

President Joe Biden will take the United Auto Workers up on its offer to come to Michigan in an historic show of support for striking workers.

The president said he will travel to Michigan on Tuesday.

“I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” Biden said Friday afternoon on X (formerly Twitter).

Biden also said it’s time for an agreement between the UAW and the Big Three legacy auto companies. The strike against Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis started on Friday, Sept. 15, at three factories. — Paula Gardner

Friday, Sept. 22

Normal day at work — until strike launched at noon Friday

It was a normal day at the General Motors Willow Run Redistribution Center in Belleville until United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain announced that 38 more plants were going on strike at noon during a Facebook Live event Friday.

People were huddling around listening, and once they heard the news, everybody knew what time it was, Wayne Waller, 37, Belleville, said.

“I‘m standing in solidarity with the union. “We want to fight for better wages, end tiers [and get] better health care coverage,” he said.

Waller first started at the Belleville plant in 2013, where he made $14.78 at the time. His wage has nearly doubled since then.

“Strike pay is not going to help us. It’s $500 a week,” Waller said. “I have a son entering his senior year and I have twin girls entering pre-school. So right now, it’s just a tough time.”

Though he was not surprised to hear he was going on strike, he is hopeful that he gains more than he did the last time he went on strike in 2019.

“This time, we’re just praying that we get something, rather than last time, we lost 42 days [of work] and gained nothing.”

Similarly, Keith Bees, 53, of Sumpter Township, has been on strike three times during his 12-year tenure at the GM plant.

“I’d like to see the tiers gone because it causes a lot of animosity in the plant amongst union members and that needs to go,” he said “I had to watch people everyday, do the same job I do, for less pay.”

Bees said he was prepared to go on strike and already had a second job. Strike pay, along with help from family members, will allow him to be on strike “as long as it takes.” — Janelle D. James

Friday, Sept. 22

Michigan workers at 13 logistics center join UAW walkout

Workers at the two parts distribution centers operated by General Motors on two sides of Willow Run Airport grabbed signs to start their picketing at noon Friday.

At the Ypsilanti Distribution Center on Tyler Road in Ypsilanti Township, Danard Harvard, 44, of Inkster, told Bridge Michigan he fully supports the strike.

“I’m on strike to end tiers,” he said.

Harvard hasn’t reached full seniority, but he’s close. People nearby in the parts facility make as much as $8 per hour more than him, due to the two-tiered wage structure for newer and longer-term workers.

Harvard was among a crowd of dozens standing near the facility’s fence, parking in a turn lane to stay off the GM property. Traffic isn’t heavy there, but honking horns of support still sounded frequently during the first hour of the strike.

Similar crowds gathered about four miles away at the Willow Run Distribution Center in Van Buren Township. Many had been working when the strike was called, and they left their stations at noon, heading to their cars and out of the parking lot. Many smiled as they grabbed signs or greeted coworkers who now join them and thousands others across the U.S. on picket lines.

Harvard told Bridge that he may be able to survive for a few months on the $500 per week strike pay. Some workers, he said, make only a few dollars more than that now. — Janelle D. James

Friday, Sept. 22

Fain invites Biden and other supporters to join pickets

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain on Friday invited President Joe Biden to picket with union members.

The call-out to the president follows former Republican President Donald Trump saying he planned to visit Michigan next week to court UAW members as he prepares another presidential bid, a move that Fain dismissed.

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said Tuesday after Trump’s announcement.

But the UAW also hasn’t endorsed Biden, a Democrat, in his reelection bid, even as many state and federal Democratic elected leaders in Michigan publicly back the union’s strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The strike expanded on Friday when the UAW added 38 logistics centers across the country to the walkout.

“We invite you to join us in our fight,” Fain said Friday to Biden and others, seeking to build support. “The way you can help is to build our movement and show the companies that the public stands with us and stands with our elected national negotiators.”

— Paula Gardner

Friday, Sept. 22

UAW calls 38 new walkouts to cripple U.S. parts supplies

The United Auto Workers union will expand its strike to parts distribution centers of General Motors and Stellantis, a move that will affect 38 facilities in 20 states.

The strike starts at noon Friday, UAW Shawn Fain said during a Facebook live video on Friday morning.

“We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses,” Fain said, describing how both automakers have not agreed to demands like a restoration of cost of living wage adjustments (COLA).

Ford, however, is excluded from the expanded strike.

“We’ve made some real progress at Ford,” Fain said, including COLA, the right to strike if a plant closes and immediate conversion of temporary workers to permanent.

GM’s striking distribution centers in Michigan have a combined total of 2,572 workers, according to the automaker. They are Davison Road Processing and Flint Processing in Genesee County; Lansing Redistribution Center in Eaton County; Pontiac Redistribution Center in Oakland County; and Willow Run Distribution Center in Wayne County and Ypsilanti Processing Center in Washtenaw County.

Stellantis’ MOPAR parts centers in Michigan are located in Marysville; Center Line, both a packaging center and a warehouse; MOPAR Sherwood, in Warren; Quality Engineering Center in Auburn Hills; Warren Parts; and MOPAR Romulus.

Workers in the parts distribution centers belong to the UAW but do not receive assembly-level wages, Fain said. If hired after 2015, a worker in one of the centers would top out at $25 per hour after eight years.

Other striking facilities are GM parts centers in Cincinnati; Denver; Hudson, Wisconsin; Chicago; Reno; Rancho Cucamonga, California; Fort Worth; Martinsburg, West Virginia; Jackson, Mississippi; Charlotte, North Carolina; Memphis and Philadelphia.

The out-of-state Stellantis sites are in Cleveland; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Denver; Chicago; Los Angeles; Portland; Atlanta; FCA Mopar in Winchester, Virginia; Orlando; Dallas; New York and Boston.

The UAW strike began early Sept. 15. The initial strike targets were a portion of Ford’s Michigan Assembly in Wayne, Stellantis’ Jeep complex in Toledo and GM’s commercial truck plant in Wentzville, Missouri, near St. Louis. Those sites will remain on strike.

Fallout from the strike has spread to workers not called to strike, as the automakers make layoffs due to production constraints. Among the first were 600 employees at Michigan Assembly, with Stellantis and GM adding additional layoffs.

— Paula Gardner

Thursday Sept. 21

GM President Mark Reuss blames UAW for ‘clouds of rhetoric’

General Motors President Mark Reuss blamed the United Auto Workers for a “flow of misinformation” about the automaker’s contract offers.

“Often in these situations, the clouds of rhetoric can obscure reality,” he wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday in the Detroit Free Press.

GM followed that later Wednesday by publishing its take on what it’s offered— like a 20% wage increase — and the UAW response. GM called the information “setting the record straight.”

In it, the Detroit-based automaker pushed back on UAW statements that it doesn’t pay a decent wage and that its record profits can fund the union’s requests.

The UAW demands include:

• 40% wage increase of the next four years, 46% when compounded
• Cost-of-living increases
• 32-hour work week with 40-hour pay
• A cap on the number of temporary workers, and convert them to full-time seniority employment after 90 days
• More paid time off and additional holidays
• Job security through what is called the Working Family Protection Program, which includes the right to strike over plant closures

“As the past has clearly shown, nobody wins in a strike,” Reuss said in his opinion piece. “We have delivered a record offer. That is a fact. It rightly rewards our team members, while positioning the company for success in the future.” — Paula Gardner

Wednesday, Sept. 20

Michigan businesses brace for longer-term strike

Economic fallout from the UAW strike is pressuring the state’s business leaders, who are increasingly concerned about a long-term walkout.

A 10-day strike could cost the U.S. over $5 billion, according to a widely circulated report from Anderson Economic Group of East Lansing. The strike reached the halfway point of that forecast early Wednesday, raising questions about how costs could grow beyond that, and who would be harmed.

“Michigan’s economic vitality is tied into the auto industry,” said Jim Holcomb, Michigan Chamber president and CEO.

The longer the strike continues, the greater likelihood of impact beyond the factories and striking workers, Holcomb told Bridge.

Chamber members such as auto suppliers and auto dealers are telling Holcomb that they are preparing for strike-related layoffs. And small businesses and restaurants in auto-centric areas of the state are bracing for sales drops.

“I have business owners calling me really worried, asking me, ‘Have you heard anything? What do you know? We’re really concerned.’”

Lack of word from automakers and the union over recent days leaves the state guessing, he added.

“Is it good because it means they’re really negotiating hard and they’re at the table? Or is it bad because nothing’s going on?”

Michigan needs to fight for all auto-related jobs, including manufacturing, Holcomb said, since the state has long led the nation in automotive employment.

Yet he’s struggling with the union demands, as presented publicly, at a time when global competition and corresponding EV conversion pressures the Big Three legacy automakers to maintain their market share, which is now about 40%.

A 40% pay increase or return to pensions is not something that any chamber member is considering, Holcomb said. From a business perspective, he said, the UAW requests are “just not realistic.” — Paula Gardner

Wednesday, Sept. 20

More strike-related layoffs

Layoffs related to the UAW strike affecting three U.S. factories are starting to accumulate, as Stellantis announced on Wednesday that 368 workers at two non-Michigan plants will be idled.

This group joins 600 non-striking workers at Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne. They were laid off last week, shortly after the strike began in a portion of the factory that makes the popular Broncos and Ranger pickups.

About 2,000 workers in Fairfax, Kansas, learned Wednesday that they are being laid off. GM had said the assembly factory could run out of parts this week, confirming to WDAF-TV in Kansas City on Wednesday that the UAW walkout at the Wentzville stamping plant near St. Louis created a “negative ripple effect.”

The Stellantis layoffs are at the Toledo Machining Plant in Perrysburg, Ohio, near the Jeep complex that is the third national strike target. Additional layoffs are coming to the Kokomo, Indiana, transmission and casting plants.

Auto suppliers also are closely watching production changes due to the strike. CIE Newcor, a prototype maker that operates four sites in Michigan — Corunna, Clifford, and two in Owosso — filed a notice with the state last week that it could lay off 293 workers for one month by early October.

UAW President Shawn Fain will address members through a Facebook live video at 10 a.m. Friday, September 22, two hours before he has said more walkouts could be called.

— Paula Gardner

Wednesday, Sept. 20

Strike enters 6th day; more walkouts possible Friday

Wednesday is the sixth day of the United Auto Workers strike against all of the Big Three legacy automakers, with Friday looming as the day that more factories could be added to the list of targeted walkouts.

UAW President Shawn Fain will address members through a Facebook live video at 10 a.m. Friday, two hours before more walkouts could be called.

The initial strike is historic, as it’s the first to affect all three automakers: Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of the former Fiat-Chrysler.

It’s also unique in its “Stand Up” format, with walkouts determined with precision to hit specific targets. The first were Ford’s Michigan Assembly in Wayne, Stellantis’ Jeep complex in Toledo and GM’s commercial truck plant in Wentzville, Missouri, near St. Louis.

The automakers are not releasing details of the negotiations since Stellantis said on Monday that talks were “constructive and focused on where we can find common ground.”

Meanwhile, federal officials who President Joe Biden said would travel to Detroit as negotiations continued no longer plan to make the trip, CNN reported.

And details are still to come from former President Donald Trump’s expected campaign trip to the Detroit area next Wednesday, as he courts union voters and criticizes UAW leadership and Biden.

Criticism in turn was leveled at Trump by Fain and two Democratic Michigan Congress members, saying he wasn’t a pro-union president and that the negotiations are too sensitive for the U.S. economy for presidential campaigning. – Paula Gardner

Monday, Sept. 18

Fain: UAW strike could expand Friday to more factories

The United Auto Workers’ strike against Big Three legacy automakers will expand on Friday from three walkouts to more if negotiations don’t yield progress.

UAW President Shawn Fain released a five-minute video on Facebook late Monday, announcing that more locals could be called upon to join the strike at noon Friday. He did not specify which factories could be affected.

“We’re going to keep hitting the company where we need to, when we need to,” Fain said. “And we’re not going to keep waiting around forever while they drag this out.”

In the video, Fain praised UAW members for their support of the walkouts at three factories: Ford’s Michigan Assembly in Wayne; the Toledo Jeep complex in Ohio; and General Motors’ Wentzville Assembly near St. Louis, Missouri.

He then turned to the union demands, saying it’s time for automakers to reward their hourly workers during a time when profits are record-setting and CEO wages are increasing.

Fain said striking workers will remain out until Friday, and he asked workers still reporting to their jobs to continue to show their support for the strike.

Only Stellantis released a statement about resuming negotiations on Monday, and in it the Dutch company that owns the former Fiat-Chrysler said it looked forward to resuming plant operations as soon as possible.

“The discussion was constructive and focused on where we can find common ground to reach an agreement that provides a bridge to the future by enabling the company to meet the challenges of electrification,” it said.

“We continue to listen to the UAW to identify where we can work together.” — Paula Gardner