UAW Workers Prepare to Strike as Contract Deadline Approaches; Entire Labor Movement Must Prepare to Mobilize in Support!

By the Labor Fightback Network

At this writing, the UAW is preparing actively for a strike that could begin at 11:59 pm on September 14. 

At a press conference on September 11, newly elected UAW President Shawn Fain stated that the Big 3 automakers have raked in $250 billion in profits over the past decade, prompting the demand that “record profits should equal record contracts.”

Contract talks are going down to the wire with the two sides far apart. 

The UAW is demanding that the Big 3 increase wages by 46% over four years; eliminate two-tier pay and benefits; win back the cost-of-living allowance; establish a 32-hour workweek with no cut in pay; restore the defined-benefit pension and the retiree health insurance; increase pensions for retirees; ensure job security for workers when plants are shut down (because of the transition to Electric Vehicles and the export of these jobs to Mexico); and make all current temps permanent employees.

The auto bosses countered with an offer to raise wages by 10% to 15%, with a one-time lump-sum 6% payment. They rejected all the other union demands. The auto magnates argue that the huge profits accrued over the past decade have to be put aside to fund the transition to Electric Vehicles.

With great reason, the UAW leaders are increasingly worried that the EV transition will be used by the employers to eliminate jobs and lower wages and benefits in the new plants. The automakers’ real concern is maximizing their profits. 

[While gasoline-powered vehicles typically use about 30,000 components, EVs require about half of that. For starters, there are over 200 moving parts in a gas engine, whereas an EV only has 18.]

Fain referred to the bosses’ proposals as “shameful and insulting” and “deeply inadequate.”

Ranks are ready to strike!

The UAW ranks are prepared to strike and ready to go. Scott Houldieson, a Ford UAW Local 551 member in Chicago and chair of the reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), stated, “The public understands that workers have gotten the shaft while keeping our economy humming along for Wall Street. It’s long past time that Main Street got their fair share!”

Lynda Jackson, recording secretary of UAW Local 7, said. “I’ve never seen so many people engaged and excited, and just ready to show the world what we deserve.”

The business press is demanding loudly that Biden intervene to avert a strike, as he did with the rail workers late last year. Biden has stated publiclythat there will be no Big 3 strike … but this time it might not be so easy for Biden to prevent a strike.  

Shawn Fain was elected for the first time in UAW history by one person one vote. Although Fain won his election by a small margin, his support among the rank and file is growing in response to his class-conscious, combative style.

In addition, the UAW is one of the few unions that has withheld its early endorsement of Biden. Having said that, Fain is seeking support from Biden for the UAW as part of the government’s intervention in subsidizing the auto companies’ transition to EVs.

You can be sure that the auto barons and their capitalist cronies, who fear that a protracted strike could seriously impact their bottom lines, will be tightening the squeeze on Biden.

Mass Mobilizations Needed to Support the Auto Workers

If the auto workers go on strike, as expected, their courageous action must be supported actively by the entire labor movement. This is a showdown and a direct challenge to Biden’s much heralded reputation as the “best friend that labor ever had.”

Sympathy strikes, massive and widespread, could be considered. A Solidarity Day 3 march and rally in Washington, DC could be organized. Picketlines at Big 3 dealerships and headquarters could be organized. Campus rallies and sit-ins could be held. The UAW picketlines will also need material support.

This is not just one more important strike. Labor analysts tell us that millions of jobs will be lost because of Artificial Intelligence (AI), of which EV is an off-shoot. 

This is largely a strike against AI as an instrument by the bosses to maximize their profits on the backs of working people when, if freed from the capitalists’ dictates. AI could be placed at the service of improving the working and living conditions of millions of people the world over. 

This is a PATCO-type moment. A successful UAW auto workers’ strike will go a long way to reverse the massive austerity restructuring forced on the union during the Obama/Biden 2009 bailout of the domestic auto companies after the Wall Street financial crisis.

The time to mobilize in our own name as a working class is now. The labor movement — beginning with the AFL-CIO – can and must meet the challenge. Every working person has a stake in ensuring a victory for the UAW.