The United Auto Workers union significantly escalated its strike against the Big Three Detroit automakers on Wednesday, with 8,700 workers at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant on strike.
The unexpected move around 6:30 p.m. destroyed the world’s largest and most profitable Ford plant. The massive plant builds expensive, heavy-duty F-Series pickup trucks and large Ford and Lincoln SUVs.
UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement that the union has waited long enough “but Ford has not heard from Ford” to bargain for a fair contract.
“If they can’t understand that four weeks later, 8,700 workers shut down this extremely profitable factory, this will help them understand that,” Fein said.
The strike comes nearly four weeks after unions began strikes targeting General Motors, Ford and Jeep maker Stellantis. September 15every company has an assembly plant.
In a statement, Ford called the expanded strike “extremely irresponsible” but said it was not surprising given UAW leadership’s expressed desire to plunge the Detroit automaker into “industrial chaos.”
A Ford executive said the union held a meeting Wednesday afternoon at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Miss., and Fein asked the company if it had any other offers.
Ford executives responded by saying they were looking into potentially including electric vehicle battery plants in the UAW national contract, essentially making them unionized. But the executive said they were not offering significantly different financial offers. The executive said Fein was told the company made a strong offer but didn’t have much room to increase the offer and keep the price affordable for the business.
Fein responded that if that was the company’s best offer, “you lose the Kentucky truck plant,” the executive said.
On September 22, the UAW expanded the scope of the strike to include 38 General Motors and Stellantis parts warehouses. Assembly plants at Ford and General Motors were added a week later. In total, about 25,000 workers are on strike at the three automakers.
So far, the union has decided to target a handful of plants at each company rather than have all 146,000 UAW members at the automaker strike at the same time.
last week, Alliance reports on progress During negotiations and decided not to add any more plants. Previously, General Motors agreed to include joint venture electric vehicle battery plants in the national general contract, and it is almost certain that these plants will join the union.
The battery factory has a major point of contention in negotiations. The United Auto Workers wants these plants to unionize to ensure jobs and maximum wages for workers displaced by the industry’s ongoing shift to electric vehicles.
Since the strike began, Detroit’s Big Three automakers have laid off about 4,800 workers at plants not affected by the UAW strike.
The companies said the strike forced them to lay off workers. They pointed out that the layoffs occurred mainly at factories that produce parts for assembly plants that have been closed due to strikes. In one case, layoffs were laid at a factory supplied by a striking parts factory.
The UAW rejected that argument. It argued the layoffs were unjustified and part of a corporate pressure campaign to persuade UAW members to accept less favorable terms in negotiations with automakers. Factories affected by layoffs are spread across six states: Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, Indiana and New York.
Sam Fiorani, an analyst at consulting firm AutoForecast Solutions, said he believes the layoffs reflect a simple reality: Automakers are losing money because of the strike. Fiorani said the companies could mitigate further losses by slowing down or idling factories that are underoperating due to strike-related parts shortages.
“It doesn’t make sense to continue to run at 30% or 40% capacity when you normally run at 100%,” he said. “What we are focusing on is not the actual number of workers who are on strike. But there are consequences.”
“While we are doing everything we can to avoid layoffs, we have no choice but to reduce parts production to the factories that are on strike,” Bryce Currie, Ford’s vice president of Americas manufacturing, said in a statement. .”
Fein countered in a statement that the automakers were using the layoffs to pressure unions to resolve the strike. Fein argued that these companies had billions of dollars in profits and therefore did not have to lay off any employees.
Striking workers receive $500 a week from the union’s strike wage fund. By contrast, anyone who is laid off is eligible for state unemployment assistance, which can be less or more than $500 per week depending on the circumstances.
“Their plan is not going to work,” Fein said. “The UAW will ensure that any workers laid off during the Big Three’s latest attacks do not lose their income.”
Fiorani said if the strike expands, non-striking factories may lay off more workers. Once the metal stamping plants that supply multiple assembly plants produce enough parts for non-strike facilities, the companies may close them.
“Once your inventory for other factories is filled,” he said, “you have to lay off workers and wait for the strike to end.”
Independent companies that make parts for automakers may have laid off workers but may not report them publicly, said Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group in Lansing, Michigan.
A survey of parts supply companies by an industry association called MEMA Original Equipment Suppliers found that 30% of members have already laid off employees and more than 60% expect to start layoffs in mid-October.
Fiorani said that while larger parts suppliers may be able to withstand a strike, smaller companies that produce parts for larger companies may not have the cash or borrowing capacity to survive a strike. Some companies may have dozens of workers “but don’t have billions of dollars in value to use as collateral for loans,” he said.
Svlook
