What Makes the UAW Strike Historic?

As contract negotiations broke down, the United Auto Workers authorized a historic strike at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis factories.

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By Joshua Murray

4 MIN READ

Sep 22, 2023

The United Auto Workers union, or UAW, after failing to agree on new contracts with each of Detroit鈥檚 major automakers. The contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023. By midnight, the union .

The strike will force General Motors, Ford and Stellantis鈥攖he global company that builds Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles in North America鈥攖o halt some of their operations. 鈥淭onight for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,鈥� announced about two hours before the negotiation deadline passed without a contract. The union is seeking higher pay, better benefits and assurances that large numbers of its members will work in the automakers鈥� .

asked , a sociologist who studies the automotive industry and its workers, to discuss the UAW鈥檚 strategy and explain why this strike is significant.

1. How important is it that this strike is affecting all three Detroit automakers?

Until now, the UAW had always gone on strike against one of the companies at a time. And in recent years, all workers employed by that automaker had walked off the job. That鈥檚 what happened in the previous UAW strike. In 2019, for 40 days. The UAW used this same tactic in .

While holding a strike against a few key plants breaks with recent UAW practices, it鈥檚 a strategy deeply rooted in the union鈥檚 history. the 1936-37 action known as the , when workers targeted what they referred to as General Motors鈥� 鈥�.鈥�

Workers took over the plants by sitting down at their work stations at the end of the day and refusing to leave. By the time the strike was over, GM had agreed to sign a contract for the first time with the UAW. The union gained hundreds of thousands of new members, and in the months that followed.

The that strategically targeting a few factories can maximize the pressure put on companies, while minimizing both the number of workers affected and length of time affected workers must remain idle.

The UAW鈥檚 use of a similar approach now will reduce the risk of the union exhausting its , from which it must pay $500 per week to every UAW member who walks off the job.

Fain is calling the new approach a 鈥�.鈥�

鈥淭his strategy will keep the companies guessing,鈥� shortly before the strike officially began. 鈥淚t will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining.鈥�

Although the strike is starting at just a few plants, the union may halt all production later on. 鈥淚f we need to go all out, we will,鈥� . 鈥淓verything is on the table.鈥�

About 13,000 UAW workers at three sites鈥攁 GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; a Stellantis assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, and 鈥攁re the first to participate in this strike.

Sit-down strikers lounge at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, in 1937. *Photo courtesy of Dick Shelton/U.S. Farm Security Administration via Library of Congress*

2. How would you define success or failure for the UAW鈥檚 new strategy?

To understand why the union chose this strategy over a full-out work stoppage, it鈥檚 important to understand the nature of strikes and what makes them successful.

In the book , sociologist Michael Schwartz and I analyzed the history of labor relations and production systems in the U.S. and Japanese auto industries to better understand the decline of Detroit鈥檚 Big Three automakers. In the process, we learned what determined the level of success of previous auto strikes.

A strike is essentially a between workers and management. Workers threaten the company鈥檚 viability by withholding their labor, going without paychecks to halt production. Companies protect themselves from strikes by stockpiling inventory so they can keep sales going. Workers protect themselves via their strike funds.

Generally, when they hurt a company鈥檚 bottom line so much that executives decide it makes financial sense to give in to the workers鈥� demands.

Strikes fail when workers can鈥檛 create enough disruption to pressure the company to give in before strike funds run out. They also fail when workers give in before securing a contract in line with their demands, than if they had never walked off the job.

, and the rest of his new leadership team seem to recognize the importance of surprising management and picking strategic targets in a way that many of the union鈥檚 . I believe that the UAW is likely to ultimately have more success with this strike than it has had in decades.

Workers walk out of the Toledo Assembly plant weaving the UAW and wearing strike ready t-shirts.
鈥� Luis Feliz Leon (@Lfelizleon)

3. Is this strike likely to be historically significant?

No doubt about it. No . Chrysler workers, who are now employed by Stellantis, . And U.S. autoworkers are targeting GM, Ford and Stellantis simultaneously for the first time in the union鈥檚 .

But it鈥檚 not yet clear how historically significant it will be.

If the UAW鈥檚鈥渟tand-up鈥� strike strategy succeeds, I think it鈥檚 likely that other labor organizers will embrace it too鈥攑otentially improving the leverage other workers have in their contract negotiations and strikes.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here under a Creative Commons license.

Joshua Murray is an associate professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Before joining Vanderbilt in 2012, he received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York Stony Brook. Murray鈥檚 research focuses on corporate elites and class conflict. The scope of his work is broad and encompasses many different cases, including federal campaign finance, ballot initiatives, and the production decisions of the auto industry. His research has appeared in academic journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Sociological Perspectives, and Critical Historical Studies. Most recently, he and coauthor Michael Schwartz published Wrecked: How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete with the Russell Sage Foundation.