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UAW's "Element of Surprise" Strike Appears to Be Working [1]
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Date: 2023-09
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Workers walked off their shifts on September 14 at midnight to cheering crowds as the United Auto Workers launched its first simultaneous strike against the “Big Three” automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The initial work stoppages were not company-wide but instead targeted three locations: GM’s Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Stellantis’ Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., just outside Detroit. The plants employ some 12,700 of the roughly 150,000 UAW members who work for the Big Three. The strike strategy, developed under the leadership of reform challenger Shawn Fain, was defined by its element of surprise. The union did not publicly reveal the strike targets until 10:00 p.m. on September 14, two hours before the contracts jointly expired. The UAW calls this approach a “stand-up strike,” which is “a new approach to striking. Instead of striking all plants all at once, select locals will be called on to ‘stand up’ and walk out on strike.” If the companies refuse to make concessions and bargaining drags on, the strike may spread to other locals, the union says, but the companies will not be informed of these locations ahead of time. The intention is to keep the Big Three on their toes, never knowing where the strike will happen next and forced to make costly preparations at numerous locations. In this case, the element of surprise appears to have worked, no small feat for a huge operation in which all 150,000 UAW members were prepared to strike. “As far as I’m aware, we never got notification of where the union may or may not strike. We heard like everyone else at 10 p.m.,” Jodi Tinson, a corporate communications representative at Stellantis, told In These Times. Ford did not respond to In These Times’ inquiry and GM had no comment.
“The fact that the company was kept guessing shows the strategy was working."
Asked whether Stellantis prepared for strikes at locations that did not walk out, costing the company money, Tinson said, “It’s the nature of bargaining that there are rumors and speculation. … In a normal situation like this when a union calls a strike, it’s typically enterprise-wide. We were ready.” “Strike preparation and contingency planning is part of our normal process in a contract negotiation year — as a responsible business we have to do that,” she added. “They made it very clear that a strike was possible and we did everything we needed to do to protect the business.” Tinson’s admission that Stellantis did not know which plant would be struck represents a break from the more typical pattern of strikes where employers have a good idea of what to expect and are able to prepare accordingly.
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