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United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Friday that the union may call on additional workers at Big Three facilities to strike “at any time,” shifting the labor movement’s strategy a month in.
“With the threat of a strike, we can get them moving,” Fain said during a scheduled address to the membership. “We changed the rules, and now there’s only one rule: pony up.”
The UAW on Wednesday surprised markets in calling for a strike expansion at Ford Motor Co.’s
F,
Kentucky pickup truck plant in Louisville, striking at the heart of the automaker’s profits. Ford’s Louisville plant produces F-Series Super Duty vehicles as well as the Ford Expedition and the Lincoln Navigator.
Ford said it has reached its limit on a contract offer.
The strike started on Sept. 14, with workers walking out at one plant each of Ford, General Motors Co.
GM,
and Stellantis NV
STLA,
and strikes at additional plants and facilities of all three carmakers had been announced on Fridays.
Several Wall Street analysts have said that the “maximum pain” for the carmakers would be strikes at plants making the high-margin, highly sought-after pickup trucks.
Besides the Ford plant in Kentucky already on strike, those key plants include GM’s Arlington, Texas assembly line making Chevy Suburbans, GMC Yukons and Cadillac Escalades, and a Stellantis complex in Detroit making Jeep Cherokees and Dodge Durangos.
Striking at all three car companies was a break with tradition, since the UAW historically called for a strike at one car company at a time, in part to preserve picket-line firepower and its strike fund.
The UAW strategy changed because Ford, GM and Stellantis seemed to be waiting for Fridays to make progress in the negotiations, Fain said.
“We are entering a new phase of this fight, and it demands a new approach,” he said.
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