UAW strike day five: UAW plans to rally outside Stellantis HQ
WAYNE (CBS DETROIT) - The President of the UAW is raising the stakes in contract talks, saying if there's no progress at the bargaining table by Friday at noon, more workers will walk off the job.
Fain will announce which plants will go on strike in another Facebook live at 10 a.m. that day.
"We're going to keep hitting the company where we need to when we need to. And we're not going to keep waiting around forever. While they drag this out," Fain said in a message to members Monday evening.
Fain upping the ante comes as no surprise to those already on the picket lines.
"We got to reach this deal one way or another. We've given up so much over the years and the last few contracts. This is the only way we're going to get it back. We got to do what we got to do," said Jason Bastien, a member of Local 51 working at Stellantis.
"It's what sends a message. You know, you got to hit them where it hurts. Right in their pocketbook, and the more they strike, the better," said Tiffany Kerr, a striking Ford employee.
As the union waits on new counteroffers from Detroit's Big Three automakers, Stellantis' COO Mark Stewart told CNBC Tuesday they'll continue to work in good faith to find common ground.
"We are hoping that it gets resolved super quickly, which is why we're at the table subcommittees at the table yesterday today. Continuing through the week, we were down at Solidarity House yesterday," Stewart said.
For those working under an expired agreement, the union is launching this online form to report those changes because even if the company wants to change the price of snacks at the vending machine, it has to be bargained over.
"You are the union's eyes and ears in your facility. We are asking you to be on alert for any changes," Ben Dictor, UAW's legal counsel, said in a message to members on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, striking workers outside the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne keep getting support from all over.
"We warehouse parts for them. We drive parts to different places for them. The union guys, the Teamsters, we're not going to cross the picket lines," said Todd Lince, President of Teamsters Local 337.
Next week, President Trump is planning to skip the next GOP debate to visit the picket lines himself, but in response, the UAW said in a statement:
"Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers. We can't keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don't have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class."
The White House is backing down on President Biden's idea of sending the Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and Senior Aide Gene Sperling to Detroit to help with talks.
"Acting Secretary Su and Gene Sperling have consistently engaged with the parties on the state of negotiations. Given that negotiations are ongoing between the negotiating parties, it is most productive for Sperling and Su to continue their discussions from Washington and allow talks to move forward, and we'll continue to assess travel timing based on the active state of negotiations," a White House official told CBS News. "The President stands with UAW workers and believes that record corporate profits must mean record contracts for the UAW."
The UAW is planning a rally outside Stellantis' Headquarters in Auburn Hills for Wednesday at 4 p.m.
