Noos News•
The strike spreads through the three largest American auto companies. Employees at 38 plants, spread across twenty states, stopped working today.
The strike began last week. On the first day of the strike, 13,000 employees left work due to dissatisfaction with wages and working conditions. Nearly 19,000 people are now participating.
The strike is organized by the UAW union. This represents approximately 150,000 auto industry employees, so 13 percent of them are now participating in the strike.
‘The Big Three’
The strikers work for the “Big Three”: Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis (parent company of Chrysler).
The union demands a wage increase of at least 36% within four years. Other demands include automatic price compensation and a four-day work week.
Electric cars
Discussions with car companies did not result in a breakthrough this week. “We know Ford is serious about reaching an agreement,” union leader Sean Fine said. “It’s a different story at GM and Stellantis.” He also said he was “not ready yet at Ford.”
Companies say they cannot meet the requirements because they will have to invest a lot in switching to electric cars in the coming years. The three offered a salary increase of about 20%, but without amending the conditions of employment as the employees requested. “As we’ve been saying for weeks, we’re not going to wait forever to get fair contracts in the Big Three,” says Fine.
Support from Biden
Strikes do have economic and political consequences. For example, Ford fired 600 employees this week as a result of the strike. According to Ford, this was necessary because there were no materials and therefore not enough labor.
US President Biden immediately sided with the strikers. He pointed to record corporate profits and sent White House representatives to factories to talk to employees.
The UAW invited Biden to visit today. The president left X She will travel to Michigan next Tuesday, a state with a large auto industry, to express her solidarity with the strikers. According to the Associated Press, no American president has done so in the past 100 years.