About 13,000 U.S. auto workers stopped making vehicles and went on strike Friday after their leaders couldn’t bridge a giant gap between union demands in contract talks and what Detroit’s three automakers are willing to pay.

Members of the United Auto Workers union began picketing at a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit; and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio.

It was the first time in the union’s 88-year history that it walked out on all three companies simultaneously as four-year contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

The strikes will likely chart the future of the union and of America’s homegrown auto industry at a time when U.S. labor is flexing its might and the companies face a historic transition from building internal combustion automobiles to making electric vehicles.

What You Need To Know

  • The UAW went on strike against the Detroit Three automakers at midnight

  • The strike is targeting three plants: a GM plant in Missouri, a Stellantis plant in Ohio and a Ford plant in Michigan

  • UAW president Shawn Fain said the UAW is seeking maximum leverage for bargaining in conducting a so-called stand up strike

  • Workers that were not called to strike will continue working under the old contract

Workers who were not called to strike will continue working under the expired contract, Fain said. He reiterated what he has repeated for months: the current contract will not be extended. 

"This strategy will keep the companies guessing," Fain said. "It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargining. If we need to go all out, we will. Everyting is on the table."

He encouraged members to keep organizing rallies and protests to "show the companies you are ready to join the stand up strike at a moment's notice."

"We must show the world that our fight is a righteous fight," he added.

Fain has been negotiating on behalf of his union’s 150,000 workers since July, meeting individually with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis on a new contract to replace the one that expires Sept. 14 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, but the two sides remain far apart.

As of late Wednesday, Ford had proposed a 20% wage increase. General Motors had offered 18% and Stellantis 17.5%. The UAW is demanding 36%.

The UAW is also demanding 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, among its list of 10 items it says the big three can afford.

Over the past four years of the current contract, vehicle prices increased 30% and CEO pay increased 40% while worker pay increased 6%.

In a YouTube video Thursday morning, Fain announced the union would launch a new kind of strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis that “starts small and builds over time as more and more of us stand up and join the fight.”

While the union plans to strike all three automakers at once, it will limit and target the strike locations to “keep the companies guessing as to where and when the next local will walk out,” Fain said in in the video.

The so-called stand up strike is a throwback to the sit down strike UAW workers staged in 1937, occupying General Motors plants to protest anti-union laws and working conditions. That strike resulted in a new contract and a new union.

In late August, 97% of UAW members voted to authorize a strike if the two sides didn’t negotiate a deal before the current contract expired. On Monday, the UAW announced it had $825 million in a strike fund and would be able to pay striking members $500 per week for about three months.

A recent study from the Anderson Economic Group estimates a 10-day UAW strike could cost the U.S. economy more than $5 billion.

The last time the UAW struck was in 2019, when 48,000 union workers walked out at 50 General Motors plants for six weeks.