UAW Strike: The United Auto Workers union on Tuesday extended its strike against General Motors to a highly successful full-size SUV facility in Texas, in response to the automaker’s excellent earnings and record third-quarter sales.
- IMPORTANT NOTES
- The United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors has been extended to a very profitable full-size SUV plant in Texas.
- Approximately 5,000 workers at GM’s Arlington Assembly plant have joined the walkout.
- The strike occurred just hours after the automaker reported third-quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street’s forecasts.
The Tuesday UAW strike escalation includes roughly 5,000 workers at GM’s Arlington Assembly plant, which produces the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV, GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, and Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban SUVs. The walkout came just hours after the automaker reported third-quarter earnings results that beat Wall Street’s expectations.
“Another record quarter and an even better year.” “We’ve been saying for months that record profits equal record contracts,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It’s time GM workers and the whole working class got their fair share.” According to the union, Fain’s statements of record results for the automaker pertain to record third-quarter revenue. GM reported lower-than-expected quarterly profits.
The automaker stated in its quarterly statement that the UAW strike has already cost them $800 million in missed output, including $200 million in the third quarter, prior to the Arlington interruption. In a statement, General Motors stated that it was “disappointed by the escalation of this unnecessary and irresponsible strike.”
“It is harming our team members who are sacrificing their livelihoods and having negative ripple effects on our dealers, suppliers, and the communities that rely on us,” the business stated, before adding that it was “time for us to finish this process.”
More than 45,000 UAW members at Detroit automakers are currently on UAW strike, representing around 31% of union members affected by expiring contracts. According to the companies, another 7,000 or more workers, or approximately 5% of the workforce, have been laid off as a result of the strike’s ripple effects.
The strike began on September 15 with walkouts at assembly plants in Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio for each of the automakers. They have now expanded to eight assembly plants and 38 component delivery sites spread over 22 states.
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The Arlington factory UAW strike comes a day after the UAW targeted a Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and nearly two weeks after a walkout at a Kentucky truck production that generates $25 billion in revenue for Ford Motor. The unscheduled walkouts at profitable plants signal a “new phase” of negotiations with Detroit manufacturers, according to Fain.
Previously, the union had threatened GM’s Arlington factory. On October 6, Fain stated that the UAW was considering a walkout at the plant until GM made a last-minute proposal to include workers at the company’s joint-venture battery cell plants in the master agreement. However, it appears that development has stalled: Fain told reporters on Monday that talks about the battery cell plants were “dead in the water,” declining to clarify.
GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company’s third-quarter investor call on Tuesday that discussions to include battery plant workers “under the scope of the national agreement” remained open, but that the current focus is for Ultium workers to negotiate their own deal with the union.
2023 UAW Strike
The 2023 UAW strike is an ongoing labor dispute involving automotive workers in the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor organization and the three unionized automakers in the United States—Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis. These three automakers’ facilities employ over 145,000 UAW members and generate approximately half of all vehicles built in the United States each year, accounting for 1.5 percent of US GDP. When the union was unable to negotiate an agreement with the three manufacturers, the strike commenced on September 15, 2023. It is the union’s first trilateral strike against the three automakers.
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