Ellen Loanes with VOX recently reported that members of the United Automobile Workers of America (“UAW), formally known as the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, voted last Friday to authorize a strike at the so-called Detroit Three automobile manufacturers (Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis) should those companies fail to offer a competitive contract by the time the current one expires on September 14, 2023.
The strike authorization is the latest in a series of high-profile labor actions in the United States (“US”) in the last year, including the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) strikes, a UPS strike authorization that resulted in a fair contract, and a threatened US railway strike thwarted by the government in December 2022.
The VOX article may be read HERE.
CNBC has also recently reported on this matter, citing that the UAW had more than $825 million in its strike fund, which would be used to pay eligible members $500 per week; however, during a strike, the UAW contract wouldn’t cover workers’ health care expenses.
The potential damage to business in the event of a strike is hard to overestimate. For example, a 40-day strike against General Motors during the last round of negotiations in 2019 led to a production loss of 300,000 vehicles, costing the company approximately $3.6 billion in earnings.
The CNBC article may be read HERE.
My brothers and sisters, while fair wages and safe automobile industry operations are critical and deserved by the UAW’s workers, I hope its members and management remember that prices for reliable transportation are already at unprecedented levels, with many working Americans having a hard time maintaining safe and reliable transportation.
A prolonged automobile manufacturing strike against “The Detroit Three” right now could further erode the US economy exactly at a time costs have skyrocketed for vehicles on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, and during a period of ongoing inflation and political instability.
The Biden Administration’s push to move quickly to electric cars is changing the landscape for automobile manufacturers, resulting in the UAW’s efforts to demand revised employee protections and long term operational plans from major automobile manufacturers.
The US needs a resolution which avoids a strike to prevent the resulting negative impact to our economy and its workers.