Curt Cranford and Carolyn Nippa on the picket line outside General Motors’ Willow Run Redistribution Center in Belleville, Michigan. (Kyle Davidson)

The United Auto Workers on Monday reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors on day 46 of the strike.

The announcement follows previous UAW tentative pacts with the other Detroit Three automakers, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, which were announced on Wednesday and Saturday, respectively. The union went on strike on Sept.15.

“Once again, we have won several astonishing victories…,” UAW President Shawn Fain said on Monday evening. “We were relentless in our fight to win a record contract, and that is exactly what we accomplished.”

“GM is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with the UAW that reflects the contributions of the team while enabling us to continue to invest in our future and provide good jobs in the U.S.,” Barra said. “We are looking forward to having everyone back to work across all of our operations, delivering great products for our customers, and winning as one team.”

It looked as though the UAW and GM were close to a deal amid negotiations late last week, with the company matching the 25% raise included in Ford’s tentative agreement that would expire in April 2028. But the two sides did not clinch an agreement, so on Saturday, the UAW called up GM Spring Hill Manufacturing, which is south of Nashville, Tenn., to join the strike.

The tentative agreement with GM includes 25% in base wage increases through April 2028, and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33% compounded with estimated cost of living adjustment to over $42 an hour. The starting wage will increase by 70% compounded with estimated COLA, to over $30 an hour, according to a UAW press release.

“Like the agreements with Ford and Stellantis, the GM agreement has turned record profits into a record contract,” the UAW said in a statement. “The deal includes gains valued at more than four times the gains from the union’s 2019 contract. It provides more in base wage increases than GM workers have received in the past 22 years.”

Curt Cranford, 66, of Northville, is 38-year GM employee who works at Willow Run Redistribution in Belleville.

“I like the way Shawn Fain did this one. I mean, we were the sole company picked in 2019,” Cranford said on Monday afternoon.

The UAW carried out a 40-day strike against GM in 2019. But this time, the union launched a strike against all three U.S. automakers.

“You know, there’s too many times I think the union and the company are too close together. … We gave up things years ago and it’s time to get some back,” Cranford added. “I’m gonna retire this year. So some of that stuff isn’t gonna affect me. I mean, the immediate raise that’d be good for me and all that. … I’m just glad for the people behind me.”

GM workers will return to work while the agreement goes through the ratification process, with the UAW National GM Council convening in Detroit to review the agreement, according to the UAW statement.

The strike against the Detroit Three included about 46,000 workers and 40 plants and part centers across the nation. As part of the UAW’s “Stand Up Strike” strategy, not all plants went on strike, with leadership periodically calling up more workers to join the picket line at pivotal points in negotiations.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer praised the pact.

“This agreement supports the hardworking men and women of the UAW and ensures that GM can continue to grow and expand right here in Michigan, where they were established over a century ago,” Whitmer said. “I urge swift ratification of this deal so we can keep competing with other states and nations to lead the future of mobility.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint) toasted the GM agreement Monday afternoon before the deal was announced publicly. He highlighted the history of Flint’s 1936 to 1937 “The Sit Down Strikes” against GM, which led to the first collective bargaining agreement between workers and the automotive companies.

“When workers stand together, they can achieve great things. UAW members want what every American wants — to put in an honest days’ work for a good-paying job, a job that can support a family and allow workers to retire with dignity,” Kildee said. “In Congress, I will continue to be a champion for working people and unions so we can grow the middle class.”

President Joe Biden talked with Fain on Monday. Last month, the president joined Fain on the picket line at Willow Run Redistribution Center, which was a historic move for a sitting president.

“This historic contract is a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs while helping our most iconic American companies thrive,” Biden added. “The final word on these tentative agreements will ultimately come from UAW members themselves in the days and weeks to come.”

Carolyn Nippa, 51 of Canton, has worked at GM for 26 years and has been through three union strikes during her lifetime. On Monday afternoon, Nippa was on the same picket line that Biden had joined.

“We gave up concessions back in 2007 to 2008 and, you know, it’s time to get them back,” Nippa said. “We were falling behind. We were definitely falling behind.”

Nippa praised the union’s strategy of launching “a different kind of strike” against all the automakers at once instead of picking one company as a strike target, like in the past.

“It was very effective and I’d like to see the same formula going forward,” Nippa said.

UAW President Shawn Fain talks with members of the UAW picket line in Delta Township, Michigan on September 29, 2023. (Photo by Anna Liz Nichols/Michigan Advance)

Four weeks into the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against the Detroit Three automakers, union President Shawn Fain announced in a livestream that the union would no longer wait until Fridays to expand its strike to new plants.

“We’re entering a new phase of this fight, and it demands a new approach,” Fain said Friday.

While Fain did not call for additional strikes against General Motors, Ford or Stellantis during the livestream, he said the UAW was prepared to call only more local unions to walk out at any time.

“When I tell all you members to be ready to stand up, I mean it. We’re not waiting until Fridays anymore,” Fain said.

About 8,700 workers from Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant were called to join the strike Wednesday night, with Fain saying Ford “hasn’t gotten the message” in contract negotiations.

During the stream, Fain said the company offered them the same deal the union had rejected two weeks ago, after telling the union there was more money that could be offered.

“At that point, I’d said, ‘That’s all you have for us? Our members’ lives and my handshake are worth more than that. You just cost yourself Kentucky truck plant.’…We didn’t wait ‘til Friday and we didn’t wait a minute,” Fain said.

Ford Vice President of Communications Mark Truby issued a statement calling the decision to call a strike at the company’s largest plant “grossly irresponsible but unsurprising.”

Fain criticized Ford’s statement during the stream.

“Ford made a lot of noise after we took out Kentucky truck plant. As the saying goes, a hit dog will holler,” Fain said.

“They admitted that Kentucky Truck generates $25 billion in revenue a year, that’s $48,000 a minute. Our labor at Kentucky truck generates more revenue each minute than thousands of our members make in a year,” Fain said.

Fain also accused Ford of waiting until Fridays to make progress on bargaining.

Ford thought they could sit back and not make further progress in bargaining because they thought they had the best deal on the table. Ford thought they could wait until Friday morning and then just make a better offer,” Fain said.

“They stopped being interested in reaching a fair deal now and only became interested in gaming our system of announcing strike expansions on Friday. They thought they figured out the so-called rules of the game, so we changed the rules. And now there’s only one rule: Pony up,” Fain said.

Fain said the UAW is continuing to look for a deal.

“I wish I had more updates or good news for all of you out of GM or Stellantis, but the fact is, we’re still bargaining hard with both of those companies. And they’re now on notice that we’re entering a new phase in this fight,” Fain said.

Fain also addressed criticism that he was setting UAW members too high.

“I want to be clear on this point. I didn’t raise members’ expectations. Our broken economy is what’s raising our members’ expectations. And our members are right to be angry. … Income inequality in the United States has now risen to heights not seen since the Great Depression. So I’m not the cause of raised expectations. The cause is overflowing corporate bank accounts,” Fain said.

Unless employers come to their senses and begin offering contracts that match gains on Wall Street, there will be more strikes on the horizon, Fain predicted.

There’s been a flurry of labor actions this fall.

More than 1,000 UAW Local 2500 members who work at Blue Cross Blue Shield went on strike last month. The union represents the company’s customer service call center department and other workers.

Nearly 4,000 workers in the Detroit Casino Council are preparing for a strike, almost 1,000 of whom are UAW members, Fain said.

Another 1,100 UAW members working at General Dynamics in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, voted 97% in favor of authorizing a strike. Their contract expires on Oct. 22.

Additionally, Mack Truck workers voted down a tentative agreement, seeking better wages, job security and reinstatement of cost of living increases. The strike involves 4,000 UAW workers across three states.

“Our union is done playing defense. We’re going on offense. We’re done aiming low and settling lower. It’s time we started aiming high and seeing how close we can get to total economic and social justice,” Fain said.

“What we win isn’t up to me. It isn’t up to your executive board. It isn’t up to your local president or the president of the United States. What we win, it’s up to us — all of us,” Fain said.

This story is republished from Michigan Advance,?a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?

UAW President Shawn Fain announcing an update to his members via social media on Oct. 6, 2023. (Screenshot)

Three weeks into the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, UAW President Shawn Fain announced a “transformative win,” on a Friday livestream, with General Motors agreeing to place its battery manufacturers under its master agreement with the union.

Before going on the livestream on social media — which was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m., but was slightly delayed — Fain had planned to call the General Motors Sport Utility Vehicle plant in Arlington, Texas, to join the strike, calling the facility its “biggest moneymaker.” However, GM’s agreement averted an expansion of the strike.

“We’ve been told the [electric vehicle] future must be a race to the bottom, and now we’ve called their bluff,” Fain said, donning an “Eat the Rich” shirt.

“The plan was to draw down engine and transmission plants and permanently replace them with low-wage battery jobs. We had a different plan and our plan is winning at GM and we expect it to win at Ford and Stellantis, as well,” Fain said.

GM has not released a comment. The company said this week that it had lost $200 million in the first two weeks of the strike that began on Sept. 15, the New York Times reported.

Earlier this week, Ford CEO Jim Farley accused the union of “holding [a] deal hostage over battery plants,” Reuters reported.

The UAW has called on 43 plants across 21 states to join its “Stand Up Strike,” with about 25,000 members picketing against all three Detroit automakers: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.Alongside the agreement with GM, Fain outlined progress in bargaining with the other automakers since the beginning of the strike.

“I wish I were here to announce a tentative agreement at one or more of these companies. But I do want to be really clear. We are making significant progress,” Fain said.

The union is negotiating for higher wages, a 32-hour work week, better pension benefits alongside other concerns like an elimination of worker tiers and a return to cost-of-living adjustments to wages to protect from inflation.

Since the first proposal of a 9% wage increase from Ford, the company has since made the highest offer among the Big Three, offering a 23% wage increase, with GM and Stellantis offering a 20% wage increase, Fain said.

Ahead of the Friday announcement, Fain told a gathering at the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) conference in Detroit that many UAW members were struggling to make ends meet.

“We’ve been dealing with trickle-down economics since the [President Ronald] Reagan days in the ‘80s and it still is the battle cry of the right. Inequality has been on the rise for decades. It’s now at its greatest level since the Great Depression,” Fain said.

Alongside continued negotiations for wages increases, Ford and Stellantis have agreed to reinstate cost-of-living adjustments for workers.

The union has also negotiated raises for temporary workers to $20 hourly at GM and Stellantis and $21 hourly at Ford.

Despite progress in negotiations, there is still more work to be done, Fain said.

The union will continue to push for retirement security for pre-and-post 2007 hires, Fain said.

“For those members who never got a pension or post retirement health care, we’re fighting like hell for real retirement security. But the companies are fighting like hell to keep our retirement uncertain and insecure,”? Fain said. “As people who give their lives to these companies, we never should have lost those rights. This strike is about righting the wrongs of the past and winning justice for all of our members,” he said.

Fain attributed advancements in the bargaining progress to the power of working class people.

“The billionaires and company executives think us auto workers are just dumb. …They look at me, they see some redneck from Indiana. They look at you and see somebody they would never have over for dinner or let ride on their yacht or fly on their private jet,” Fain said.

“We may be foul-mouthed, but we’re strategic. We may get fired up, but we’re disciplined. And we may get rowdy, but we’re organized,” Fain said.

The union has been very careful about escalating the strike, designing its strategy not to hurt companies for its own sake, but to push them to say yes when they want to say no, Fain said.

“This week, GM did something that was unthinkable until just today. They agreed to put the future of this industry under our national agreement.This victory is a direct result of the power of our membership,” Fain said.

The UAW will rally in Chicago at 2 p.m. Saturday at the UAW Local 551 Union Hall where Fain will join other union leaders and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

This story is republished from Michigan Advance,?a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?

UAW President Shawn Fain. (Photo by Ken Coleman)

Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), on Monday night announced that more locations may be called to join the union’s strike on Friday.

The UAW declared a historic strike against all three members of the Big Three automakers at midnight Thursday, after contracts expired with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

“I have been clear with the Big Three every step of the way, and I’m going to be crystal clear again right now. If we don’t make serious progress by noon on Friday, Sept. 22, more locals will be called on to stand up and join the strike,” Fain said in a video posted to social media.

Instead of striking all plants at once, the union is holding a “Stand Up Strike,” where select facilities will be called on to walk out on strike. Workers who are not called to strike will continue working under the agreement.

Workers at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and General Motors’ Wentzville Assembly in Missouri were the first facilities called to strike last week.

The potential announcement of additional strikes will mark more than a week since members first walked out, and a week of the Detroit Three “failing to make progress in negotiations,” Fain said.

“Noon on Friday, Sept. 22 is a new deadline. Either the Big Three get down to business and work with us to make progress in negotiations, or more locals will be called to stand up and go out on strike,” Fain said.

State and national politicians have come out to support union workers, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders?(I-Vt.), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor), U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Twp.) and U.S. Sen.?John Fetterman?(D-Pa.).