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GM Authority

UAW Is Ready To Strike For Months If Needed

The UAW (United Auto Workers) labor union is prepared to strike for months to broker the best-possible deal with the Big Three Detroit automakers, per a recent string of leaked messages. The labor union is employing a targeted strike strategy intended to give union negotiators the greatest flexibility possible when dealing with GM, Ford, and Stellantis. The UAW recently announced that it was expanding its walkouts to additional GM and Stellantis facilities following insufficient progress in negotiations.

UAW union members demonstrate with signs.

According to a report from CNN, leaked messages between UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman and other members of the labor union shine a light on the union’s strategy and tactics. The leaked messages reportedly include screen shots from a closed messaging group on X, formerly Twitter, and were first reported by The Detroit Free Press.

“If we can keep them wounded for months, they don’t know what to do,” Furman writes on one of the messages, adding, “this is recurring reputations damage and operation chaos.”

“The beauty is we’ve laid it all out in public and they’re still helpless to stop it,” Furman writes in another message.

The UAW is currently engaged in a targeted strike strategy wherein only select production facilities are called on for walkouts, rather than every facility all at once. The strategy will allow the union to slow the drain on its strike fund, with striking union members eligible for $500 per week in benefits. The UAW represents 146,000 workers across all three of the Big Detroit automakers.

The first facilities to receive the call in the strike included the GM Wentzville plant in Missouri, Ford’s Wayne Assembly plant in Michigan, and the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio. This Friday, the UAW expanded its strike against GM and Stellantis, citing insubstantial progress towards brokering a new contract. Workers are now striking at GM’s parts distribution centers as well. The UAW opted not to expand its strike against Ford, stating that substantial progress was made with Ford, although workers at all three of the original strike targets are still called on to participate in the walkout.

The strike has affected other facilities as well. GM was forced to idle production at its Fairfax assembly plant due to a shortage of stampings from the Wentzville facility.

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Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

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Comments

  1. Communism

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    1. Ouch!

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  2. Go for it, stay out 14 months. We don’t care as long as you stay with a 46% wage increase. It gets awful cold out in January thru March. Too bad New York state and New Jersey let you collect unemployment benefits. Let your union buddies pay you from the strike fund.

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    1. What is everybodies hourly wage now?! Since your demanding a 46% raise?

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  3. My brother worked on the line to get through college. He would get his quote done in 3hours then it around and study for the next 5. I have no sympathy for people making a $100k + a year and belly aching about it😊

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  4. No one cares about GM or Ford, most of us buy Kias or Toyotos anyway.

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    1. The way you spell Toyota you may want to stay with Kia. Looks like the least amount of letters the better for you. Happy trolling.

      Reply
  5. UAW is on the verge of extinction with the Biden Administration intent on eliminating all fossil fuel vehicles and transition to electric vehicles market will be minimized unstainable and unaffordable.

    Reply
  6. They may strike themselves right out of jobs. If the domestic auto makers find that it is too costly to produce cars in America they will move operations to another country or build cars with non-union workers, as foreign manufacturers do in America.

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    1. Biden is letting all of these illegal immigrants come into the US and ready to give them jobs. I’m sure he can convince all of the people that voted for him he would be doing a great deed by letting them go to work in the auto manufactures.

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  7. Say goodbye to the UAW and all it’s disciples. Your Golden Goose will be dead and you’ll be living on the streets with all the other homeless people. You’ll have no one to blame but yourselves. The rest of America will be laughing at your foolishness. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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  8. The closing of the parts distribution centers really hurt mainline America. If Joe the plumber can’t get to work, guess what’s gonna happen and he has a truck next time it won’t be a Chevy Ford or dodge. I hope Fains son-in-law truck is in the shop forever. You can hurt the dealers, but not making any cars but they can survive. When every day Americans can’t get to work, they can’t survive. I have lost all respect for anything that has to do with the auto workers union.

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  9. Again, build what you can then lock the doors.

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  10. If the UAW keeps this up auto companies should lock them out of all plants except the ones that make EV’s and EV components. UAW leaders would be forced with a decision on whether or not to strike those plants. This would be against EV Pro Joe’s main push and put him in conflict with his pro union stance. Would be interesting to watch.

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  11. I can see it now your warranty repairs will be done with Chinesium parts the dealer buys on ebay. Get into a crash, more Chiniesum parts.

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  12. The Big 3 need to hold out and force the UAW’s hand. Let the UAW bankrupt itself paying their slugs to prance around looking stupid holding silly signs. Once the UAW is out of the picture, the automakers can hire people willing and able to work and the quality of the vehicles will improve as will sales. As far as the UAW’s demand for an insane 46% raise, once your unemployed 46% of 0 is still 0.

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  13. Lock them all out. They won’t be able to afford to have every employee on the picket line for Months. Negotiations will go quicker when employees are all broke.
    What the UAW should realize is that the Manufacturers are willing to just pull the pin. Look at Holden in Australia. It wasn’t profitable anymore (they made money, but not enough to bother with it) so they just shut it down.
    China is a larger Market than the us for Buick and Caddy, so they could just pull the pin here.

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  14. The big three owe these workers NOTHING!!!!!! Their UAW contract is up. Make a last ditch offer and move forward with a non union workforce if the offer is turned down. As a shareholder in all three companies I would rather weather the storm in the short term vs this crap every three to four years come contract time. If it takes 4 to 6 months to hire and train a new workforce so be it. Enough with this UAW crap.

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  15. Maybe the UAW stays on strike for a couple of months, the government shuts down for a couple months, the long overdue stock market crash hits, suppliers bankrupt, oil prices spike, massive job losses, etc. We could watch the whole country go down in real time and watch things totally collapse. Some of you would be the happiest with that scenario. That would teach them.

    Reply

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