DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – During the third United Auto Workers practice picket this week that UAW President Shawn Fain attended, he announced in Kentucky that the union voted in favor of authorizing a strike against the Big Three Automakers – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, voting in favor by 97%. 

“Our union’s membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck-to-paycheck while the corporate elite and billionaire class continue to make out like bandits,” said UAW President Fain. “The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs.”

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The auto union has been advocating for a myriad of contract updates and incentives after the Big Three had particularly profitable years. 

“The union’s demands include the elimination of tiered wages and benefits, wage increases to offset inflation and match the generous salary increases of company executives over the last four years, the re-establishment of cost-of-living allowances and defined benefit pensions and retiree healthcare, the right to strike over plant closures, significant increases to current retiree benefits, and more paid time off to be with family,” according to UAW officials. 

UAW Vice President Mike Booth, director of the UAW-General Motors Department shared that it passed by a large margin at GM. 

“The highest authority is the membership, and this is definitively outlined within our UAW Constitution,” Booth said in a statement, “Today the 46,000 UAW represented members at General Motors clearly spoke with a unified voice when the strike authorization passed by 96%.” 

Ford recorded a higher percentage of votes in favor of the strike, 98% for hourly represented workers and 99% by salaried represented workers, according to the UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, director of the UAW-Ford Department. 

“Ford earned $76 billion in North American profits between 2013 and 2022 and their profits are once again surging in the first half of this year,” Browning said in a statement, “This resounding strike authorization vote by our Ford members shows that they are ready to go the distance and do what is necessary to claim their fair share of Ford’s success.”

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The smallest automaker union to vote in favor of the strike came from Stellantis, still passing by a margin of 95%. 

“The 44,000 UAW members at Stellantis have said with one voice that they are demanding an end to tiers, COLA and big wage increases like the Stellantis executives have enjoyed,” Boyer said in a statement. 

Internal documents revealed earlier in the month show that Ford has been preparing in the event of a strike by transferring white collar workers to help fill the potential blue collar occupations. 

“We are working hard to reach a new deal. But, like we do for any scenario where customer service could be interrupted, we need to plan for the possibility of a UAW strike. Our customers and dealers are counting on us to ship parts so we can keep Ford vehicles on the road,” a Ford manager said. 

The UAW contract expires on Sept. 14, and it covers 150,000 auto workers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis according to the UAW.