A year after the Big 3 strike, some union autoworkers face an uncertain future

For months last year, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain had warned the Big 3 automakers that September 14 was not a suggestion, but a deadline.

After failing to reach new contracts by the stroke of midnight, he kept his word, calling on workers at three major assembly plants to walk off the job.

Now a year later, there’s no doubt autoworkers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, formerly Chrysler, are earning more money. For some, significantly more.

At the same time, particularly at Stellantis, workers say they face a highly uncertain future, with little faith that their new record contracts, achieved after a painful six-week strike, will keep their jobs intact.

“This is the lowest that morale's been in the 11 years that I've been here,” says Jim Cooper, a team leader at Stellantis’ Toledo Assembly Complex where the Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator are built.

Weaker car sales have dampened contract gains

A downturn in sales this year at Stellantis, which formed when Fiat Chrysler merged with the French automaker Peugeot in 2021, has led to production slowdowns at U.S. facilities, layoffs for as many as 2,450 assembly workers outside Detroit next month, and a delay in plans to reopen a plant in Belvidere, Ill.

In the first half of this year, Stellantis profits dropped 48 percent from the year before, the company reported this summer.

In August, the company confirmed rumors that it was putting on hold plans to start production of a midsize truck in Belvidere in 2027.

"To ensure the company’s future competitiveness and sustainability, which are necessary to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs, it is critical that the business case for all investments is aligned with market conditions," the company wrote in a statement. Stellantis declined NPR's request for an interview.

Now, workers are wondering how committed the trans-Atlantic automaker is to remain in the U.S. at all.

For years, Cooper says, old-timers at his plant in Toledo have warned that if wages rose too much, the company would move jobs to Mexico. It's a threat he's always shrugged off, given how profitable the Jeep plant has been for Stellantis.

But now?

"I could see it," he says.

Higher pay but fewer hours

The strike and contract wins last year were supposed to be a turning point for auto workers. After decades of concessions, auto workers were finally getting what the UAW said was long overdue: Raises of 25 percent or more over the life of the contract, the return of cost-of-living adjustments, and new job protections, including the right to strike over plant closures and in some cases, broken investment promises.

The raises have indeed materialized. Since the strike, pay has jumped by more than $5 an hour, including a cost-of-living adjustment, for most workers. Some temporary workers who were converted to permanent, full-time employees under the new contract have seen their hourly wages nearly double.

But scheduled overtime, common in the auto industry, has fallen dramatically, cutting into workers' paychecks. Last year, Cooper says he was routinely working 60 hours a week to meet production demands. That has since evaporated.

Not only has there been far less overtime for workers, but over the past three weeks, production in Toledo and elsewhere has been halted for a couple days at a time as too many cars remain on dealer lots.

"My checks are smaller than they were before the strike," says Cooper.

Of course, there are upsides to working less.

"I don't feel like a zombie in the afternoon. I can go do stuff with the kids, go to Scouts, do some yard work," he says.

"But losing overtime is a big hit."

A strike threat over broken promises

Losing American auto jobs all together would be an even bigger hit, and something the UAW is fighting aggressively to prevent.

Last month, the union began a formal grievance process over the delay in reopening Belvidere. That process could eventually lead to a strike at one or multiple plants, even as the union and Stellantis spar over whether a strike would even be legal under the current contract.

While the UAW won the right to strike over the failure to fulfill product and investment commitments, Stellantis has pointed to what's essentially an escape clause in the contract, allowing them to push back investments if market conditions change. The UAW argues that the company is at fault for failing to plan for and fund its commitments.

"Let me be clear, Stellantis must keep the promises made to America in our union contract," Fain said in a fiery speech before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month. He vowed that the union would take "whatever action necessary" to hold the company accountable.

Marick Masters, professor emeritus at Wayne State University, says behind the scenes, the two sides are no doubt negotiating in an effort to avoid another strike. But with the headwinds facing carmakers — not only slower sales but also the costly transition to EVs — he says the UAW is in a bit of a quandary.

"There's no language that I can find in that memorandum of understanding that explicitly gives the union the right to strike" given the current conditions, he says.

In Toledo, Cooper says unlike last fall, he has little hope that a strike would be successful anyway.

"We would probably stand out here by burn barrels in the cold for two weeks, and then have a judge tell us, 'Go back to work or you'll be fired,'" he says.

More union wins elsewhere

Elsewhere in the U.S. auto industry, there are more positive signs that last year's strike is making a difference for workers — and for the UAW.

In a major win for the union last fall, General Motors agreed to bring workers from its EV battery joint venture Ultium Cells under the national labor agreement.

That's already paying off for 1,600 Ultium workers in Lordstown, Ohio, who this summer ratified a new contract with raises of 30 percent over three years, and for a thousand more Ultium workers in Spring Hill, Tenn., who joined the UAW earlier this month.

"The workers organized without facing threats or intimidation and won their union once a majority of workers signed cards," the UAW said in a statement, describing a process known as card check recognition.

Life-changing raises come with some twists

Even at Stellantis, the pay raises have changed some workers' lives.

Kevin Pinson had worked at the Toledo Jeep plant as a temporary employee for six years, far longer than the one to two years he thought it would take to be rolled over to permanent status.

As part of last fall's negotiations, the UAW got Stellantis to agree to reduce its heavy reliance on temps and convert several thousand of them to full-time employment. With his tenure at the plant, Pinson was among the first to be converted. His wage went from about $19 an hour at the time of the strike to more than $35 an hour.

A father of two, Pinson says the raise has given him a cushion — something he desperately needed.

"Before the raise, I actually had to donate plasma to make extra income just for bills and stuff," he says. "My hours were not steady."

But there was a catch. Stellantis assigned a group of workers, chosen based on the digits in their social security numbers, to new jobs at a warehouse in Detroit, 90 minutes away. Despite his seniority, Pinson was one of them.

"They basically gave us a week notice," says Pinson. "None of us even knew where it was. Never even heard of it."

Suddenly, his work days grew significantly longer. He was leaving home at 3 am to make his 5 am shift. Gas money was eating into his raises. He went from filling his tank once a week to filling it every two days.

Then in July, he was brought back to Toledo and put on the evening shift, working some nights until 2 am.

"I don't know what the future holds," he says. "There are so many rumors about being laid off until stuff starts selling."

Last fall, even with record raises and the promise of permanent status on the table, Pinson voted against the contract, doubtful that Stellantis would make good on its end of the deal.

While his doubt remains, he's not too worried about his job — at least for now.

"We're going to be starting the 2025 [models] soon, so at least we'll have that to build," he says.

Copyright 2024, NPR

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