Ford and General Motors laid off 500 more workers on Monday, adding to a total of over 6,000 workers that have lost their jobs due to the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike that started September 15th. They cut employees across four plants throughout the Midwest.
UAW President Shawn Fain implemented a targeted strike system, meaning only workers at specific plants across the country walk out. Targeted strikes focus on essential plants that provide supplies to other plants, meaning that a strike would render other plants to cease production due to a lack of key materials.
While more UAW members join the picket lines, some non-striking workers say they have been negatively affected by the strikes. In an interview with the GH Falcon, A 38-year-old worker, who wished to stay anonymous, said that the strikes had a noticeable impact on their single-income family. “I was laid off from the Ford Michigan Assembly plant. The $500 a week doesn’t compare to what I made before, and I don’t have the liberty to go without my usual income.” The UAW has vowed to pay all workers on strike, including those who got laid off, $500 a week.
I can’t choose between future wages and putting food on the table for my children.
— Anonymous Ford Michigan assembly worker
The UAW has a strike-fund of around $825 million which is enough to pay all of its 146,000 members for eleven weeks. Currently, only 25,000 UAW members are on strike, meaning that the strike could last well past Christmas, experts conclude.
In a statement released by General Motors on October 2nd, the automobile giant blamed the UAW for job cuts. “The UAW leadership’s decision to call a strike at GM Wentzville Assembly and now GM Lansing Delta Township Assembly continues to have negative ripple effects…We have said repeatedly that nobody wins in a strike, and this is yet another demonstration of that fact.”
The Big Three automobile companies – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis- have yet to come to an agreement with the UAW regarding wages and benefits. The UAW demands a 46% increase in pay, a four day work week, and union representation at new electric battery plants among other things. The Big Three claim they do not have enough profits to meet the UAW’s demands, saying that money instead has to go to the transition into electric vehicles. Some states have made it mandatory to switch production into electric vehicles by a certain year.
Private analysts have estimated a running total of over four billion dollars in economic losses since the UAW strike has started. Billions more are expected if both parties do not reach an agreement soon.
