U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joined the picket line in support of striking auto workers in Michigan on Monday.
Fetterman said he drove his late-model Ford Bronco from Braddock, Pennsylvania, to Wayne, Michigan, where it was built, to walk the picket line with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
“I always stand for the union way of life,” Fetterman said. “I live across the street, you know, from a steel mill and the steel workers, you know, and I came from Pittsburgh. It’s a union town as well and I always stand for the union.”
About 13,000 auto workers walked off the job late last week at three targeted factories after their union leaders couldn’t reach a deal with Detroit’s automakers.
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The UAW is seeking big raises and better benefits from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. They want to get back concessions that the workers made years ago, when the companies were in financial trouble.
A small percentage of the union’s 146,000 members walked off the job at a GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit; and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.
Negotiations between both sides continued Monday.
Politics
Stellantis said its most-recent proposal to United Auto Workers includes raises of nearly 21% over the course of the contract and an immediate 10% pay increase, CNBC reports.
Their deal would end wage tiers for some workers, according to the network. The proposal is in line with proposals from Ford and General Motors. The union wants up to 40% raises as annual gross profits have risen by 34% at Ford and 50% at GM since 2019; it also demands the elimination of seniority based wage tiers created as a money saver for automakers during the Great Recession.
The union said its negotiations with Ford today were "reasonably productive." But UAW President Shawn Fain lashed out at all three companies, saying they have threatened layoffs of nonunion workers as a tactic to get members to settle sooner for less.
Read more details on the strike and continuing negotiations here.
