UAW Strike is On

No money for wage increases because ………

For the first time ever, the UAW is striking at all of the Big-3 auto makers.

Currently, only 3 non-critical plants are struck, and they plan to ramp up.

It's being called a, "Stand Up Strike," a reference of the 1936 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan.

Tick, tock. At midnight the clock ran out, and auto workers massed on picket lines.

The first-ever simultaneous strike at the Big 3 automakers—General Motors, Ford, Stellantis—started September 15 with 13,000 workers walking out of three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. There are 146,000 Auto Workers (UAW) members at the Big 3.

The UAW is calling its strategy the “stand-up strike,” a nod to the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937 that helped establish the union.

The shot across the bow came two hours shy of midnight via a very short Facebook Live video where UAW President Shawn Fain shared the strike targets: Stellantis’s Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio; GM’s Wentzville Assembly Center, near St. Louis; and the final assembly and paint departments at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant, west of Detroit. These plants make highly profitable full-sized SUVS and trucks, including the Jeep Wrangler, Chevy Colorado, and Ford Bronco.

Fain laid out the union’s escalation strategy on Wednesday. The union will target a few plants at first, letting the Big 3 know the union is willing to inflict financial pain.

The idea is to keep the companies guessing. If they don’t move on the union’s demands, more pain will be applied—but the companies won’t be able to predict where.

“An all-out strike is still a possibility,” Fain said.

I think that a part of this strategy is an attempt to thread the needle with Joe Biden, who has been supportive of the union: 

President Biden forcefully sided with the striking United Auto Workers on Friday, dispatching two of his top aides to Detroit and calling for the three biggest American car companies to share their profits with employees whose wages and benefits he said have been unfairly eroded for years.

In brief remarks from the White House hours after the union began what they called a targeted strike, Mr. Biden acknowledged that the automakers had made “significant offers” during contract negotiations, but he left no doubt his intention to make good on a 2020 promise to always have the backs of unions.

“Over generations, autoworkers sacrificed so much to keep the industry alive and strong, especially the economic crisis and the pandemic,” Mr. Biden said. “Workers deserve a fair share of the benefits they helped create.”

Needless to say, in a perfect world the UAW would not be considering the political ramifications to Biden's reelection effort, but we don't live in a perfect world.

The plan appears to be that there will be a limited number of facilities struck, and that when a plant is added, notice will be given to management only at the last moment.

File the following under, "How petty can the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ get?" Musk directed that the UAW have its blue check mark yanked from its Ecch account, though they back tracked once it started to get coverage.