September 5 – The United Auto Workers have a list of demands that they expect to have met or the group will strike on September 14.
The list includes a 46 percent pay raise, 40-hour pay for a 32-hour work week and a return to traditional pensions.
The demands have been taken to General Motors, Ford and Stellantis and the company heads are saying the requests just aren’t feasible.
If a strike were to happen it would include 146,000 members of the UAW.
Analysts have calculated even a few days with workers on strike could cost the automakers billions of dollars.
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “The comment by the UAW head, what does he say? Well, the government gave money to everybody else. We want our share, the equitable share of that too. Just increasing where the government rushes in to give a lot of money where its own policies are destroying the car industry, this electric car fetish and the green stuff. It’s absurd. It’s not going to work.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll predicted, “I think you’re going to see a strike. They’ve authorized the strike. Now there is a question, will they do this maybe piecemeal? They’ll start at either a GM or a Ford and then expand it. The UAW president made some very incendiary comments this weekend, about the corporate leadership at these companies. They’re pointing out that the leaders, the CEOs, and the corporate executives all got 40 percent plus raises over the last few years and now the workers want to see that match. There’s no way management is going to agree to this. So I think you’re going to see a strike within the next few weeks.”
Jansen said, “We have a very activist head of that union now and we see the unions just making claim after claim and getting victory after victory, because, frankly, certain politicians need their support to win their elections and the policies of the Biden ministration have put us in such a bind in a labor market, which is not exactly accurately reflecting the people out of work and whether they can get a productive job or not. These unions now have the Biden administration over a barrel.”
Congressman John Joyce said, “It’s absolutely absurd. I am a right to work as an individual. I think the states have to make sure that individuals have a right to work, regardless of union affiliation, or not. Pennsylvania, each and every state should have those capabilities. We’ve seen the expansion of the auto industry into the south, into states that have no ties to unions, but where those ties to unions lead back to? They lead back to Joe Biden. Interestingly, as he’s campaigning for reelection, he’s doing a dismal job for the United States. He’s looking for these union workers. He’s looking for their votes right now. I think it’s thinly veiled, the timing of this and why he’s doing that. Under President Biden, we’ve seen the price of new and used vehicles skyrocket. That’s Biden’s responsibility and he wants to see that go up even further. The American people cannot afford this continued failure in leadership.”
