CHICAGO — “We’re glad to join the strike,” Courtney O’Barski, a member of United Auto Workers Local 551, picketing Ford’s assembly plant here Sept. 30, told the Militant. “Inflation is killing us. Retirees need health insurance coverage.”
The day before, the union expanded the strike to this plant and General Motors’ Lansing Delta Township assembly plant in Michigan. This brings the total to 25,000 workers on strike against the Big Three at 43 warehouses, factories and distribution centers in 21 states.
Among the union demands aimed at reversing earlier concessions are cost-of-living adjustments that automatically raise wages with inflation, a 46% wage increase, an end to the two-tier system that pays new hires half the pay of long-time workers, and a return to “defined benefit” pensions that promise a set monthly retirement.
The strike began Sept. 15 at one assembly plant each of Ford, GM and Stellantis. A week later, the union called out workers at 38 parts distribution centers.
The strike is being followed by workers around the country. Bosses are watching too. BMW Group spokesperson Nathalie Bauters told the Herald-Journal that the company — which has a large nonunion factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina — is “closely” following the strike.
“I can hardly support my family,” Ford worker Tiara Banks told the Militant. “I have a 4-year-old and a 14-year-old. We are fighting for 32 hours for 40 hours pay. That would give us more time with our kids. Starting pay is now $16.67 per hour. That’s just a little over minimum wage.”
A 32-hour workweek with 40 hours pay is aimed at preventing job losses caused by the government and bosses’ push for electric vehicles, which take fewer workers to produce.
Strikers are winning solidarity from other workers and unions. Striker Teefahrah Curry said Oct. 1 that “most cars passing our picket line honk to show support. People have dropped off food and drinks.”
UAW President Shawn Fain said from the start that the union’s strategy was to not strike all Big Three plants at once, then step up the pressure on the auto bosses over time. Many workers are hoping to be the next ones called out.
“Me, I would have put everybody out,” Chenelle Hoilfield, a strike captain at a Stellantis Parts Distribution Center in Warren, Michigan, told the Detroit Free Press. “That would have made a bigger impact.” She added, “I’m pretty sure there’s a method” to the union strategy.
Militant worker-correspondents visited picket lines at two GM parts distribution centers near Flint, Michigan, Oct. 2.
“They make the temps work seven days a week nonstop,” said striker Connie Stratton. “Permanent workers put in a lot of overtime too, but you aren’t forced to work more than two Saturdays in a row.”
“We want our pension back,” said Jennifer White from GM Customer Care and Aftersales, who has 17 years seniority. Workers hired since 2006, she said, only get a 401(k), whose value depends on the vagaries of the stock and bond markets.
Lisa Jackson and two of her co-workers from Saginaw Metal Castings, members of UAW Local 668, joined the picket line at Flint Processing Center in Swartz Creek. “We’re not on strike, but we came today to do our part in supporting the strike,” said Jackson.
Also joining the picket was Valerie Edwards, a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers at a casino in Detroit. She told strikers that 3,500 workers at three Detroit casinos have voted to strike if their demands are not won by Oct. 16.
‘We want everything we gave up over the past 16 years’
WINCHESTER, Va. — Spirits were high here at UAW Local 946’s picket line outside Mopar auto parts, a division of Stellantis, Sept. 26. Up to 14 trailer loads of parts are shipped weekly to 224 dealers. Since the strike began it’s down to two, strikers say.
“We want everything we gave up over the past 16 years,” said Greg Thorson, 63. “Stellantis made $12 billion in the first six months of this year. They can afford it.”
“One of the main reasons we are out here is to get rid of the two tiers,” Thorson said. “Everybody should get the same wages for the same work.”
“The difference in wages creates animosity and divisions in the workplace,” added Joseph Hartely, 37. “Some people make $17 an hour, some make $23 and some make $31. We are not just striking for ourselves. It helps the working class. If we can get a raise, so can everyone else.”
Tina Potter is a “temporary” worker, with only four months at Mopar. “Before working here, I worked at Amazon down the street. They paid $4 an hour more but they don’t treat the workers right,” she said. “Here, the union defends the temps, like everybody else.
“We have no benefits, and there is mandatory overtime but we can’t miss a day or we can be fired,” she said. “The company told me, ‘You don’t need a call out number — don’t call out.’”
— James Harris
Auto bosses just keep expanding the workload
STREETSBORO, Ohio — A dozen UAW Local 573 members kept up a lively picket line at the Stellantis Mopar Cleveland Distribution Center here Sept. 26. There was a steady beeping of horns, particularly from drivers from FedEx, which is nonunion.
Gordon Everett, a retired GM worker from Pittsburgh, joined the picket. “They have been taking things away from us with the line, ‘You’ve got to give it up or else we’ll close the plant,’” he said.
“It’s time to get some of it back,” picket captain Rudy Murry agreed. “But I don’t see the pension coming back.” Murry said 401(k) investments in the stock market plummeted during the recession. “History can repeat itself,” Everett said. “And then you ain’t got nothing.”
Shelby Nicholson, who has worked for Chrysler for 28 years, injured her back because of the heavy work picking orders. “They just increase the amount of tickets we’re supposed to fill,” she said. “They closed down another section and added the work to us.”
— Candace Wagner
‘Never had a bigger opportunity to make gains’
BEAVERTON, Ore. — A dozen workers picketed the Stellantis Parts Distribution Center here a few days after joining the national UAW strike. “The biggest demand is the tiers,” said striker Geoffrey Barnes. “If tiers are still in the contract, I will vote no every time. It’s a moral thing with people making less money for the same work.”
“We’ve never had a better opportunity to make gains with what is happening with all the unions, like Teamsters at UPS,” he said.
Many of the workers here transferred from Belvidere, Illinois, after the assembly plant there shut down earlier this year. “After the plant closes, pizza places and other businesses close,” Barnes said. “It devastates the community.”
Other unions and workers joined them at a rally earlier in the week, including Kaiser Permanente workers who plan to go on strike later in the week, the roofers’ union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and teachers.
— Jacob Perasso
‘Work conditions, like no air conditioning, are big issue too’
MORROW, Ga. — “Their support means a lot to us,” UAW Local 868 member Robert Duvall, who has worked at the Stellantis Parts Distribution Center here for 28 years, told the Militant on the picket line Sept. 28. He was referring to the big wooden “greeting card” brought by UAW Local 882 members and retirees from the Ford Parts Distribution Center in nearby McDonough.
Local 882 members, who aren’t on strike yet, have been visiting the picket line, bringing food and solidarity.
“We have our own local issues too,” striker Christoph McFadden added, “mainly working conditions. There is no air conditioning in there and in the summer, temperatures often hit 100 degrees or even more!”
— Bob Braxton, retired
UAW Local 882 member
Rail workers say, ‘Your fight is our fight’
ORLANDO, Fla. — Morale was high on the UAW Local 1649 picket lines at the Stellantis Distribution Center here Oct. 2. “We have to get rid of the two tiers and we need the cost-of-living adjustment. One trip to the grocery store for a family can be $500,” said Raul Medina, a utility worker.
Strikers say UPS drivers in the Teamsters union are not crossing the picket line. This worker-correspondent, a member of SMART-TD Local 1138, a co-worker who is an engineer in the BLET rail union, and a Walmart worker drove four hours from Miami to deliver a solidarity letter and $150 collected from rail workers.
Local 1138, which represents workers at CSX and the Florida East Coast Railway, expresses “solidarity in your fight for dignity, safety and justice in your workplace,” says the letter signed by Local President Damron Hamilton, three other local officials and this correspondent. “Rail workers have faced years of cuts in crew size and the worsening of new hire training, which has contributed to recent deaths on the job and general unsafe conditions.
“Your fight is our fight.”
— Laura Anderson
It’s time to ‘stand up’ to end two tiers
HUDSON, Wis. — Over 100 people rallied at the GM parts plant here Sept. 29. Striking members of UAW Local 722 were joined by a number of area unions. The rally was co-sponsored by Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation.
Local 722 member Jodie Schmidt makes $19 an hour; her husband is the electrician in the plant. They left Wisconsin after GM closed the Janesville plant, where he worked in 2008, and moved to Lordstown, Ohio, to get work at the plant there. Then that plant closed and they moved back to Wisconsin.
“We’ve had to follow the job,” Schmidt said. Her son has started work in the plant at $17 an hour. To make ends meet, he and his wife and child live with the Schmidts.
“I’m here to support my brothers and sisters — solidarity is the only way,” said Ryan Beierman, a member of Teamsters Local 120, which was on strike at Marathon Oil Company in 2021 in South St. Paul, Minnesota.
— Joanne Murphy