One day after the United Auto Workers expanded its strike to a Stellantis plant that makes its bestselling Ram pickup trucks, the union began striking a General Motors assembly line in Texas that makes some of the company's most popular full-size SUVs.
On Tuesday, 5,000 workers joined the picket line at the GM Arlington Assembly facility that manufactures the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade.
About 45,000 of the UAW’s 150,000 members are now on strike at various Ford, General Motors and Stellantis facilities, including 6,800 workers who joined the picket line Monday at Stellantis’ Sterling Heights, Mich., factory.
Tuesday's picket line expansion comes after GM reported $3.1 billion in income for the third quarter, despite losing $800 million in operating profit because of the UAW strike. In a note to investors Tuesday, CEO Mary Barra addressed the ongoing labor dispute, saying the company’s “current offer is the most significant that GM has ever proposed to the UAW.”
On Friday, General Motors made a new offer to increase UAW-represented employee wages 23% over the course of the new contract to $40.39 per hour. GM had previously offered a 20% wage increase. GM’s latest offer includes the reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments for its most senior workers and profit sharing for temporary workers who have put in at least 1,000 hours.
Barra said the offer “rewards our team members but does not put our company and their jobs at risk.”
UAW President Shawn Fain had a different take on GM’s financials.
“Another record quarter, another record year,” he said in a statement. “As we’ve said for months: record profits equal record contracts. It’s time for GM workers, and the whole working class, to get their fair share.”
In July, Fain began meeting with the automakers separately, presenting each of them with a list of 10 demands, including a 40% wage increase, cost-of-living adjustments, defined pension benefits for all workers, the right to strike over plant closures and more paid time off to be with families. While the UAW has made progress with all three companies, Fain said earlier this month he was tired of automakers gaming the union’s system of announcing strike expansions on Friday and engaging in 11th hour negotiations and would strike plants without notice.
Before expanding the strike against Stellantis on Monday, Fain said the company’s most recent offer was “the worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression, temporary worker pay and conversion to full-time, cost-of living adjustments and more.”
Stellantis countered Fain’s characterization, saying its “very strong offer would address member demands and provide immediate financial gains for our employees. Instead, the UAW has decided to cause further harm to the entire automotive industry as well as our local, state and national economies.”
UAW members are striking factories and parts distribution centers operated by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The strike began September 15 with 13,000 workers at three factories after the Detroit auto makers failed to agree on the terms of a new contract that expired in mid-September.
The strike expanded one week later with another 5,000 workers at 38 parts distribution centers in 20 states operated by GM and Stellantis and expanded again a month ago to two additional factories owned by GM and Ford.
Earlier this month, the UAW added 8,700 workers to the picket lines at a Ford factory in Kentucky that makes some of the company’s most profitable trucks and SUVs, including its Super Duty pickups, Expedition SUV and Lincoln Navigator. Fain said the Kentucky truck plant makes $25 billion annually — or $48,000 in revenue every minute.
Ford executives responded to the Kentucky factory strike by saying the company had reached its financial limit in contract negotiations with the union. Two weeks before the UAW expanded its strike against Ford, the company agreed to a 23% wage increase. It also said it would reinstate the cost-of-living formula it had suspended in 2009 and also granted union members profit sharing and the right to strike over plant closures.
The union also won additional job security in the event of layoffs, with both full-time and temporary workers receiving income security for up to two years including healthcare.
On Friday, Fain said, there's still "more to be won" from the three companies.