UAW prepares to expand US auto strike
Washington, September 27 (EFE).- The president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Shawn Fain, will announce on Friday the extension of the strike that has affected General Motors (GM), Ford and Stellanis since September 15.
Fain will appear on Facebook Live on September 29, exactly two weeks after the start of the demonstration.
According to CNBC, the strike, which currently affects 41 plants and some 18,300 workers, will be extended to other plants of the Big Three automakers if no progress is made in the next few hours in negotiations to sign a new collective agreement.
On September 15, Fain appeared before his members via Facebook Live to announce the start of the strike at GM, Ford and Stellantis assembly plants.
A week later, on September 22, he used the same means to announce the extension of the strike to another 38 workplaces.
The union leader warned that he would pursue a strategy of phased walkouts at the three automakers, something the UAW has never done in its history.
Fain explained that the unusual strategy will make it even more difficult for the three companies to operate.
The UAW is demanding a 40 percent wage increase over four years, the elimination of wage disparities among workers at the same plants, greater job security guarantees and the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments that were in place until 2009.
On Tuesday, Fain scored his biggest victory yet by getting US President Joe Biden to join the picket lines in Detroit.
Biden backed the union’s fight, telling striking workers: “Wall Street didn’t build this country, the middle class built this country. Unions built the middle class. That’s a fact.”
“Let’s keep going; you deserve what you’ve earned, and you deserve a hell of a lot more than what you’re getting paid now,” the president added.
It is the first time in history that a sitting president has joined strike pickets in the United States. EFE
jcr/mcd/ics
