A year ago today, Big 3 autoworkers walked off the job to fight for better wages and benefits. Now a year later, autoworkers remain concerned about the future of their industry.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It was on today’s date in 2023 that thousands of autoworkers in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio walked off the job.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED AUTOWORKER #1: Whoo (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED AUTOWORKER #2: UAW, let’s go.
UNIDENTIFIED AUTOWORKER #3: Come on, UAW, baby.
UNIDENTIFIED AUTOWORKER #4: Come on, let’s go.
RASCOE: That was the start of a six-week strike, the first time ever that the United Auto Workers took collective action against the Big Three carmakers all at once. By November, the union emerged with historic wins, including raises of 25% or more. And now, a year later, some workers are worried about the future. NPR’s Andrea Hsu joins us now. Hi, Andrea.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Hi, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Take us back to that big union win last year. This was talked of as a turning point for autoworkers, right?
HSU: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you have to remember, since before the Great Recession, autoworkers had been losing ground. Their wages had been slashed. They lost great benefits like pensions when carmakers were in financial straits. But by the time 2023 rolled around, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis were making record profits. Their CEOs were earning tens of millions of dollars, and the autoworkers demanded that they, too, be rewarded. Now, they didn’t get everything they asked for, but the union hailed the new contracts as an unprecedented win, something that all workers could aspire to.
RASCOE: So that was last year. How are workers faring now?
HSU: Well, I went to Michigan and Ohio last week to talk specifically with workers at Stellantis, which, Ayesha, you might know as Chrysler. I know it’s been a bad year for the company. Car sales are down, and profits are way down, and we know layoffs are coming to a truck plant near Detroit.
But then there was this bad news about Belvidere. The union had gotten Stellantis to agree to reopen this plant in Illinois which had been idled. That was actually a pillar of the new contract, and now the company says the reopening is on hold, so workers are feeling really uncertain about the future. I talked with Jim Cooper. He builds Jeep Wranglers in Toledo. And he said, you know, there’s always been talk that if costs get too high, the jobs could be moved to Mexico. But this time, he told me…
JIM COOPER: This would be the first time that I’ve ever actually thought that that could be a possibility.
HSU: And this is coming from someone who never used to worry about job security.
RASCOE: What is the union doing about all of this?
HSU: Well, they’re not happy. The union has called out Stellantis for trying to go back on a promise, and local unions have filed grievances over the Belvidere delay. I spoke with Romaine McKinney. He’s an electrician who’s president of UAW Local 869 in Warren, Mich. I asked him whether this could lead to another strike, and here’s what he said.
ROMAINE MCKINNEY: The objective is not to go on strike. The objective is to put hardworking union members in a job that can take care – so they can take care of families. The best thing to do is honor the contract, and let’s get this thing rolling.
HSU: But it’s actually not so straightforward. The contract does have some wiggle room, allowing Stellantis to go back on investment commitments if market conditions change, and the company says that they have.
RASCOE: As we mentioned, workers did win big raises after last year’s strike. Is that making a difference for people?
HSU: Well, yeah. They went from making 31-something an hour before the strike to now more than $36 an hour, and there are more raises to come. And some people have actually gotten even bigger pay bumps, like a worker I met who was a long-time temp. He got rolled over to full-time status, and his wage has nearly doubled.
But there is a twist here. Last year, before the strike, autoworkers were getting a ton of overtime. Sometimes, they were working even 60 hours a week. And that has evaporated because demand for cars is just not what it was. So Jim Cooper, the guy we heard from earlier, told me he’s taking home less now than he was before the strike.
RASCOE: And now a new strike, though not by autoworkers. On Friday, workers at Boeing walked off the job. What’s going on there?
HSU: Yeah, these are 33,000 machinists who built airplanes on the West Coast. They voted down a contract that would have given them 25% raises over the next four years. They wanted even more. And like the autoworkers, they’re angry. They feel like they’ve gotten the short end of the stick going back more than a decade, and like all of us, they’ve been hit with inflation. I will say, these workers do have some leverage. You know, for all of its problems, Boeing is still one of two companies making most of the world’s airplanes. Their market share is really big, so this is really shaping up to be a tough fight.
RASCOE: That’s NPR’s labor and workplace correspondent, Andrea Hsu. Andrea, thanks so much.
HSU: Thanks, Ayesha.
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