TOLEDO, Ohio — There is a working-class battle taking place in the auto industry today that all workers should support. Some 13,000 United Auto Workers’ members went on strike Sept. 15 at the Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan; General Motors in Wentzville, Missouri; and Stellantis’ Jeep plant here. Overall, 150,000 union members work for the Big Three. The union says more workers will walk out Sept. 22 if progress isn’t made in negotiations.
The union is fighting to undo damaging concessions demanded by the bosses over the years, deal with the blows from today’s crippling inflation, and defend workers’ jobs and livelihoods amid the bosses’ transition from making cars with internal-combustion engines to electric vehicles.
UAW Local 12 here has close to 6,000 members, and on the second day of the strike hundreds were on picket lines ringing the big Jeep complex. Chants, honking horns, music and the smell of barbecue filled the air. Stacks of wood are stockpiled around burn barrels for the increasingly crisp northern Ohio nights. Striker after striker told the Militant they believe the “time is now” to take on the auto bosses.
“We haven’t had COLA since 2006, we haven’t had a pension since 2006 and a lot of other things since then. The only way you make a good living in this plant is to live here,” said Craig Mellott, a millwright and strike captain for skilled trades workers. “You work 60 hours a week, and with driving time it’s 70. Change gotta come.”
“They talk about a good family/work balance, but you don’t get any of that working here 70 hours a week!” added Vince Manders, a chief union steward.
Michael Allen, a part-time worker who has been what the company calls a “supplemental employee” for seven years, makes $16.60 an hour while full-timers make twice that. There is no timeline to make full time, he said, no vacation time, no bonuses, no profit sharing or other benefits — but there is forced overtime.
“They should just roll us over to full time,” he said. “We deserve the same pay for the same work and this is hard work!” The battle to end the divisive two-tier pay scale and use of temporary workers is a key part of the strike and one of the reasons workers are determined to fight.
Manders and Mellott don’t think this will be a short strike. “There’s a lot of good energy here, we need to stay focused,” Mellott said. “Solidarity will be really important.”
The union is demanding an end to the two tiers; a 40% wage increase over four years; restoration of cost-of-living-allowance protection against inflation; pensions — not 401(k) plans — for all workers; as well as reestablishing medical benefits for retirees and the right to strike over threatened plant closures.
The bosses are drooling over higher profits from electric vehicles, which they say can be built with at least 30% fewer workers. The union is demanding a 32-hour workweek for 40 hours pay to spread work around and prevent layoffs.
A car with a traditional internal combustion engine has 33,000 moving parts, Electric vehicle cars built today have just 13,000. EVs don’t have oil to change, oil filters to replace, or need a cooling system.
The Big Three automakers, who have amassed nearly $250 billion in profits over the last decade, say workers need to sacrifice so they can compete with nonunion companies like Tesla.
The bosses have already taken advantage of the transition to set up separate electric battery companies — outside the master UAW auto contract — along with South Korean bosses. The fight is on for the UAW to unionize them.
Ultium Cells, a joint venture of GM and South Korean LG, is located next door to the now shuttered Lordstown GM plant. It was the first of these plants organized by the UAW. The vote was 710-16 last December.
When Ultium opened up, workers started at $16.50 an hour and topped out at $20. A tentative union contract approved Aug. 27 raises the starting wage to $20 an hour, increasing to $21 after six months. All other issues are still on the table.
The transition will also hit the auto parts suppliers, many of which are concentrated near auto plants in Midwestern cities, such as Kokomo, Indiana; Lima, Ohio; and Detroit, as well as hundreds of thousands of related jobs from the steel industry to your car mechanic.
Workers join strike pickets
Some 2,000 UAW members and strike supporters came to the union’s Sept. 15 rally in Detroit. A large contingent participated from Louisville, Kentucky, some from the John Deere plant in Illinois, and Jeep workers came from Toledo. UAW Local 600 members from the Detroit Ford River Rouge plant had a big presence.
UNITE HERE union workers from Detroit-area casinos, who are in contract negotiations, were there. “We’re supporting the autoworkers and we may need their support in the future,” Terrell George, vice president of UNITE HERE Local 24, told the Militant. Members of the Association of Flight Attendants union and Amazon workers trying to organize at the DTW1 facility in Romulus were there. UAW President Shawn Fain was the main speaker.
There is a sense of pride among these workers. “Last night when we walked off the job at midnight, it was chaotic and organized at the same time,” said Keegan Kellums, 24, who works the assembly line at Ford. “Only two of us in the plant have ever been on a strike before. I am so proud of my union for standing up.”
The rally ended with a march to join the picket line of 1,000 UAW-organized Blue Cross Blue Shield workers, who went on strike last week. They chanted, “Blue Cross is on strike, don’t get sick tonight.”