The motor workers’ strike worsens. The Union United Auto Workers (UAW) announced on Friday that 6,900 workers will join the picket lines after another frustrated week of negotiations with the Detroit automobile giants, General Motors, Ford y Stellantis. Two new plants have been added to the list of the 41 that have so far been affected by the demonstrations in search of substantial improvements in their working conditions.
If last week it was Ford that was exempt from the union strategy due to important progress in the negotiations, now it is Stellar which has escaped a new punishment after approaching positions with the leaders of the UAW. “Moments before this broadcast, Stellantis made significant progress on the 2009 cost-of-living subsidy… in addition to the right to strike over product commitments, plant closures and subcontracting moratoriums,” the president said via Facebook of the union, Shawn Fain.
This explains why there were two and not three new plants affected, one for assembly of Ford en Chicagowhere they produce the Ford Explorer and the Lincoln Aviator, and General Motors in Lansing, Michigan, a factory for the Buick Enclave and the Chevrolet Traverse.
The new battlehorse now, in addition to calls for wage increases, the reduction of the work week to four days and improved pension and health insurance benefits, is the future facing workers. 146,000 union members face the imminent transition to electric vehicles. Donald Trump himself, who landed on Wednesday in Michigan to campaign for elections, referred to the “murder” of the automobile industry due to the “transition to hell” pushed by the “lunatic environmentalists” who will ensure that none of the protesters have a work in three years.
Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, indicated on Friday that they could have reached an agreement on salaries and benefits but “the UAW has decided to hijack the agreement for the battery plants.” This is despite the fact that some of these new factories cannot be legally included in the negotiations as they are not unionized. UAW leaders have already indicated that the new projects under construction will be vital to the future of their organization.