Michigan’s auto industry has a decades-long tradition of union and company leaders shaking hands before contract negotiations. This year, new United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain is flipping the script and shaking his members’ hands instead.
“I’m not shaking hands with any CEOs until they do right by our members and we fix the broken status quo with the Big Three. The members have to come first,” Fain said in a Facebook Live announcing plant visits.
Fain and UAW leadership visited Stellantis, General Motors and Ford plants in Southeast Michigan during shift changes to regain the confidence of 150,000 autoworkers. Bargaining beings at Stellantis on Thursday, July 13, Ford on Friday, July 14 and General Motors on Tuesday, July 18. Current contracts expire in September.
Fain criticized previous union leadership as acting a mouthpiece for the automakers with “company unionism” and told members “those days are over.”
Coming off her shift in the GM paint shop, Christina Mathis, 45, greeted her UAW colleagues with hugs and handshakes. Previous visits from UAW leadership felt quick and impersonal compared to the group greeting on Wednesday, she said. Now she wants to see the energy translate to the bargaining table.
“I hope the strong stance stays and we get the gains,” she said.
Fain was voted in this spring after campaigning on reversing the concessions made by the union during the 2008 recession and other negotiations. After years of rampant inflation, bringing back cost-of-living adjustments is high on the list of demands. Similarly, Fain wants to erase pay tier systems while re-establishing pensions.
Fain has already thrown down the gauntlet and said Stellantis, Ford and GM will be in the crosshairs of a strike if demands aren’t met.
“They’ve made a quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits over the last 10 years,” Fain said. “They can afford to make things right for our members. If the Big Three don’t give us our fair share, then they’re choosing to strike themselves. We’re not afraid to take action.”
Mathis has worked at the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, now called Factory Zero, for 23 years. This week her daughter, Micheala Mathis, 23, started orientation in subsystems. Both of Mathis’ daughters joined her on the picket line in 2019 when General Motors shut down for a record 40 days.
The Mathis family, four generations of autoworkers, is gearing up for another fight.
Since the beginning of the year Mathis has been tightening the family budget. During the 2019 strike, the union paid workers less than $300 a week. That just about covered gas from Mathis’ hometown of Flat Rock to Detroit, she said.
This time around they’re prepping with cost reductions, like cutting back at the salon or less summer travel, and bigger financial shifts, like paying down loans and credit card bills.
Waquin Harris, 37, came to GM in 2021. The previous strike laid the groundwork for his contract as a team leader on Factory Zero’s self-driving Cruise Origin project. Taking a cue from his grandfather and stepdad who worked at GM, Harris said he’s supportive of a strike to pave the way for future generations.
“If it happened tomorrow then we’re doing it for a purpose, we’re doing it for a cause,” he said. “We’re fighting for future workers, too.”
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