UAW President Shawn Fain announced a more aggressive stage of the ongoing strike during a presentation on Friday, October 13. He said that automakers had grown used to the union making announcements on Fridays about additional factories taking part in the labor campaign. Starting now, things can change “at any time.”
“Today, I’m not announcing any further strikes,” Fain said. “Instead, I’m announcing a new phase in the standup strike. Moving forward, we will be calling out plants when we need to, where we need to with little notice.”
According to Fain, the UAW is done playing defense. Instead, he wants hard negotiations to see “how close we can get to total economic and social justice.”
Fain didn’t mention specifics about the negotiations with General Motors or Stellantis. His presentation came a day after the UAW strike expanded to include Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant. He specifically addressed Blue Oval CEO Jim Farley in the speech.
“Jim Farley took in 21 million last year,” Fain said. “We need him to do two things right now: Look in the mirror and look in Ford’s bank account. Go get the big checkbook, the one Ford uses when it wants to spend millions on company executives or on Wall Street giveaways.”
In a statement about the strike on October 12, Ford wrote: “The decision by the UAW to call a strike at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant is grossly irresponsible but unsurprising given the union leadership’s stated strategy of keeping the Detroit 3 wounded for months through ‘reputational damage’ and ‘industrial chaos.’”
The Kentucky plant is Ford’s largest factory and generates $25 million a year in revenue. The site produces the F-Series Super Duty, Expedition, and Lincoln Navigator. It employs 8,700 UAW members.
The UAW went on strike against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis on September 15, 2023. Since then, the union has gradually added additional workers taking part in the labor campaign. On October 9, nearly 4,000 members from Mack Trucks joined the movement.
