Could the UAW auto workers strike reach Orlando?

Auto workers represented by the United Auto Workers walked off the job last Friday at three manufacturing plants in Ohio, Missouri and Michigan in a historic strike that, if it continues, could have effects here in Central Florida.

The organized work stoppage, prompted by the failure of three major auto companies to come to an agreement with their workers’ union, marks the first-ever simultaneous strike against the country’s three largest automakers, known as the “Big Three”: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the parent company behind Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram brands.

Most of the nearly 150,000 UAW members of the Big Three work out of manufacturing plants in the Midwest, but there are also dozens of Ford, Stellantis, and GM parts distribution centers scattered across 25 states, including two in Florida.

UAW Local 788 represents around 40 auto workers at a Ford distribution center in Davenport, a small city southwest of Orlando, while UAW Local 1649 represents about 80 auto workers at a Stellantis facility near the Orlando International Airport.

So far, only workers at three plants in Ohio, Missouri and Michigan have walked off the job, after 97 percent of voting UAW members at the Big Three voted to authorize a strike last month.

The deadline to reach an agreement and head off a strike was the end of the day on Thursday, Sept. 14. That, obviously, didn’t happen.

The UAW and many labor unions across the country are framing this fight not just as one for auto workers, but as a fight against corporate greed and for the broader working class.

“This fight is about all of us,” Liz Shuler, president of the national AFL-CIO, representing 12.5 million working people across the U.S, shared on a virtual community call ahead of the strike. “It’s not just about UAW members, it’s about the working people of this country.”

Among other things, the UAW members are fighting for:

• the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments (former union leadership agreed to suspend COLA 14 years ago, as GM and Chrysler faced bankruptcy in 2009)

• improved retirement benefits for retirees (including UAW retirees in Florida)

• the elimination of a tiered wage system that pays some workers less for the same job

• a 32-hour, four-day work-week for better work-life balance

• job security and the right to strike over plant closures

• better job mobility for temp workers

• a just transition to electric vehicle manufacturing

• 36% raises over the life of the four-year contract (down from the union’s original 40% demand) — not quite matching the average 40% raises given to the companies’ wealthy CEOs

All other auto workers who haven’t walked out on strike — including the Florida UAW auto workers — are currently working under an expired labor contract (with most of their labor protections still in place), although some have reportedly engaged in other solidarity actions, according to Labor Notes, like refusing voluntary overtime and organizing practice pickets (inspired by the UPS Teamsters’ pickets earlier this year).

It’s the expiration of their union contract that prompted and legally allowed the workers to strike. More specifically, it’s the failure of the three auto companies — which have made nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in profits in North America over the past decade — to satisfy workers’ demands in their proposals.

“Our goal is not to strike,” Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, said two days ahead of the strike, in a Sept. 13 video update. “Our goal is to bargain a fair contract. But if we have to strike to win economic and social justice, then we will shut down the Big Three.”

“Our goal is to bargain a fair contract. But if we have to strike to win economic and social justice, then we will shut down the Big Three.”

What’s different this time:

After decades of contract concessions and findings of corruption within UAW leadership, a newly elected slate of union reformers (Fain included) has made a point of not only working to restore internal trust among membership, but of underscoring that, as union labor shoots automaker CEOs’ salaries into the stars, record profits should mean record contracts for their union workers.

The union’s also changed their approach from pattern bargaining — where they bargain contracts with each automaker individually, one after the other — to bargaining with all three automakers at once.

That’s what has made this the first simultaneous Big Three strike in the union’s history.

Union leadership hasn’t minced words on what’s actually prompted the strike, from the workers’ perspective.

Fain, a 54-year-old electrician and 29-year UAW member who was elected union president earlier this year, has literally trashed earlier contract proposals from the auto companies on camera, framing them as an insult to workers.

“Management has chosen to spit in our faces,” Fain declared last month, during an online video update on an earlier Stellantis offer.

After reading out a laundry list of concessions the company proposed on things like healthcare, vacation days and outsourcing, Fain tossed the papers in trash “where it belongs.”

“Because that’s what it is,” he explained.

Fain’s election to that leadership position comes after years of organizing by a union reform movement, Unite All Workers for Democracy, similar to a reform movement within the Teamsters that also ushered in new leadership.

UAW leadership, unlike during previous rounds of contract negotiations in recent decades, has made a point of dismissing the idea that the union will automatically concede to the whims of the Big Three automakers, two of which received massive bailouts from the federal government when facing bankruptcy during the Great Recession.

Union members granted concessions to the automakers at the time, who then rewarded workers’ sacrifices with plant closures, pay stagnation and labor cuts.

While most mainstream media has spread fear-mongering about the strike’s potential effects on the U.S. economy, Big Three workers told Labor Notes the cost of doing nothing, and conceding to a contract that leaves essential labor behind, is much higher.

“They want to scare the American people into thinking that autoworkers are the problem,” Fain said. “Corporate greed is the problem.”

Real hourly earnings for auto workers have fallen 19% since 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Big Three, meanwhile, have made $21 billion in the first six months of 2023 alone, and have paid out billions in stock buybacks over the past 12 months. Their profits nearly doubled from 2013 to 2022.

Nonetheless, automaker CEOs have cried to the media over the union’s demands, particularly on pay.

Billy Masters, president of Orlando’s UAW Local 788, politely declined to comment on the strike when contacted by Orlando Weekly. Two reps of UAW Local 1649, which represents Stellantis employees near the airport, have not responded to our calls.

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If you’re a UAW member who works at the Stellantis center in Orlando, or are a UAW retiree based in Florida with thoughts to share on the strike/contract, email reporter McKenna Schueler at mckenna@orlandoweekly.com.

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For the tldr; let’s break some of this down:

— Are Orlando auto workers (or any in Florida) on strike?

No, none of the UAW auto workers employed by the Big Three in Florida are currently on strike. [UPDATED 11:30 a.m. Friday; see below.]

While union members last month voted to give the union the OK to call for a strike at any time, the union’s decided to take a coordinated, staggered approach they’re calling the “Stand Up Strike.”

Instead of having all UAW members of the Big Three strike at once, which could deplete their strike fund more quickly, they’ve called on just three locals to strike first.

More strike locations will be announced Friday morning if the union doesn’t reach a deal with the Big Three first. UPDATE: At noon Friday, Sept. 22, auto workers at a Stellantis facility represented by UAW Local 1649 will go on strike.

Workers currently on strike get $500 each per week from the union, which worries some union members, but many believe the strike is nonetheless necessary to leverage their demands.

“It’s just irritating for people like us who come in here, bust our butts every day, and management — they just don’t care,” Adelisa Lebron, a striking Ford worker in Michigan and single mom of three, told The Real News.

— Could Florida workers join the strike?

Yes, but it’s unclear how likely that is at this point, based on what information the union has shared publicly.

— What does this ‘stand up strike’ approach mean?

The Stand Up Strike, according to union president Fain, “is a strike that starts small and builds over time as more and more [members] stand up and join the fight.”

It’s a strategy of striking targeted plants, announced with little notice, in order to throw off the automakers and leave them scrambling to guess which locations could be next.

The Stand Up Strike is also a nod to the UAW’s militant “sit-down strikes” of the 1930s, which sparked a strike wave across the country.

Since the 1980s, union membership nationwide has declined with the enactment of anti-union policies and a political landscape that wasn’t friendly to unions. Membership today is dismally low in what’s frequently described as the “anti-union” U.S. South. A resurgence in worker-led organizing during the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked hope among labor activists that this could change.

“We are once again returning to our roots and reclaiming our tradition of holding the line for working people against unchecked corporate power,” Fain said in a video update last week.

— Is it even legal to strike in Florida?

Short answer: Yes, if you work in the private sector.

However, it’s pretty standard for union contracts (if you are union) to contain “no strike” clauses, meaning you’re not allowed to strike while your contract is in effect.

When that contract expires, however, and it’s not extended by the two parties,  it’s fair game.

This is different in the public sector. Public sector workers in Florida (e.g. teachers) are prohibited from striking under a state law dating back to 1959. Less than a decade after that prohibition was passed, thousands of Florida teachers led the nation’s first teachers’ strike, and state lawmakers responded by creating harsher penalties for walking off the job.

Now, public workers who strike anyway can be put on probation and/or fired. Unions who represent those workers could face the risk of being decertified and fined out of existence.

— Why are the auto workers asking for such big raises?

Real hourly earnings for workers in the auto industry have fallen 19.3% since 2008, accounting for inflation. Meanwhile, the Big Three auto companies are seeing record profits.

The union also made concessions during the last three contract cycles (under different leadership), which did little to nothing to address stagnant pay. This time, they’re playing catch-up. Their demand also pointedly matches average raises given to the automakers’ CEOs.

— Why do they deserve big raises? What makes them so special?

Union leadership has emphasized that their goal is to raise the standards everywhere, and to make a point to CEOs throughout the country who, like the Big Three, make 200 to 300 times more than their average frontline employee.

Workers represented by unions make higher wages on average, but labor unions can also help to raise wages industry-wide, even for nonunion workers.

Furthermore, under former leadership, the union accepted concessions from the automakers in the past that have resulted in workers being left behind. They’re trying to make up for lost time and improve working conditions for workers who’ve given years, or even decades, of their lives to these companies.

— What have the auto companies offered?

According to Reuters, Stellantis shared over the weekend that it had hiked its earlier offer on pay, proposing raises of 20% over the life of the four-year contract.

That offer reportedly matches proposals from GM and Ford, which has described their offer as “historically generous.”

The union hasn’t provided any indication of a breakthrough in negotiations.

All three automakers have announced layoffs at plants not on strike since the work stoppage began last Friday, blaming the union.

— Why am I hearing about so many strikes these days?

There’s a bunch of folks out on strike right now, not just the Big Three auto workers. Withholding labor is broadly touted by labor organizers as one of the most powerful ways to leverage demands for improvements in pay and working conditions.

Actors and screenwriters, organized with SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America, have been on strike for months. So have hotel workers, represented by Unite Here, in Los Angeles.

About 190 UAW workers at a Mercedes supplier in Alabama, separate from the Big Three, also walked off the job Wednesday, followed by a brief walkout at an Infiniti in New York a day later, per the union, reportedly over bad faith bargaining and retaliation from their employer.

Over 1,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan workers, also organized with the UAW, are out on strike.

Last month, UPS workers organized with the Teamsters narrowly avoided what would have been one of the largest strikes against a single employer in U.S. history after they reached a deal approved by membership last month.

— Are there any other ways the Big Three strike could affect Florida?

There could be downstream effects of the strike that could ostensibly reach Florida, although the auto industry isn’t exactly one of our state’s most pivotal industries.

UAW retirees based in Florida also have a stake in the fight, since the contract includes provisions concerning retirement benefits. 

Linda Snover, a UAW member and retired GM factory worker who lives in New Port Richey, told Orlando Weekly that retiree benefits haven’t increased over the years, which can make it harder for people who rely on those benefits to stay afloat.

Snover worked at a GM plant up north for 20 years, from 1967 to 1987, before GM shuttered her factory. She earned a small pension after taking a buyout, but her husband, Tom, a UAW retiree who worked for over 20 years at union headquarters in Detroit, gets those full retirement benefits, which can be a lifeline for healthcare and things like legal services.

They’re sympathetic to former union leadership. Still, there’s been little done in recent contract cycles to ensure retirement benefits for folks like themselves in the Sun Belt are keeping up with inflationary pressures.

“That’s why down here in Florida, you find a lot of homeless people that maybe at one time or another were working in a factory,” Linda shared, adding that older people who’ve never been union, or been afforded retirement benefits, have it worse. “And if they’ve been retired for many years, that could be an issue as far as making ends meet.”

One of the concessions the union also made to the automakers over a decade ago was giving up the pension for workers hired on after 2007 — and that hasn’t changed.

Solidarity from local labor across industries

Eric Clinton, president of the Central Florida AFL-CIO (a coalition of labor unions), told Orlando Weekly that if the strike does reach the Sunshine State, organized labor will be there to answer any requests from the UAW for solidarity.

“Any time that working people are demanding more from their boss, a way to support them is through solidarity and showing up when they ask us to.”

U.S. Congressman Darren Soto, a pro-labor Democrat from Central Florida, also took a moment to express solidarity with local Big Three workers at Stellantis’ Orlando parts depot and Ford’s Davenport facility.

“The decision to strike is never taken lightly, and it reflects the genuine concerns and aspirations of UAW workers who deserve fair treatment, equitable wages, and retirement security,” Soto shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Their fight is not just for their co-workers and families, but for the entire labor force that depends on strong unions like UAW to uphold workers’ rights. I will keep advocating for the rights of working families and working to ensure that the voices of UAW workers are heard.”

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