The United Auto Workers (UAW) strike has expanded again with roughly 34,000 American auto workers now striking across the United States while few Americans, a poll finds, back General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis in the conflict.
Late Wednesday evening, 8,700 UAW members at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant in Louisville walked off the job and joined 25,300 other UAW members who have been on strike for nearly a month now.
“We have been crystal clear, and we have waited long enough, but Ford has not gotten the message,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It’s time for a fair contract at Ford and the rest of the Big Three. If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it.” [Emphasis added]
Auto workers at the Louisville plant produce Ford’s highly profitable pickup trucks, the Ford Expedition, and the Lincoln Navigator.
Ford executives called the expansion of the UAW strike “grossly irresponsible.”
“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,'” Ford executives said.
Signage is displayed outside the Ford Motor Co. Kentucky Truck Plant in the early morning hours on October 12, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)
A factory worker holds a picket sign outside the Ford Motor Co. Kentucky Truck Plant in the early morning hours on October 12, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)
Factory workers and UAW union members form a picket line outside the Ford Motor Co. Kentucky Truck Plant in the early morning hours on October 12, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, recent polls show Americans are increasingly on the side of UAW members against the Big Three automakers. In an Associated Press/NORC Poll conducted October 5 through October 9, fewer than 10 percent of American adults said they side with the automakers in the labor dispute, while 36 percent back the UAW members.
The poll also showed that across party lines, few American adults back the automakers in their dispute with UAW members. Among Republicans, only 12 percent side with automakers, while 22 percent side with UAW members.
Only 12 percent of swing voters, similarly, side with automakers while 20 percent side with UAW members. Democrats are the most likely to show support for UAW members, with 55 percent backing them and only five percent supporting the automakers.
AP/NORC Poll
By a 60 percent majority, American adults said they support the UAW members’ plea for increased pay to keep up with record inflation and the rising cost of living under President Joe Biden, the poll found.
Just nine percent said wage hikes for auto workers are a “bad thing.”
Auto workers are striking not only for pay increases but also to get commitments from the Big Three that Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates will not crush their wages and eliminate their jobs entirely.
For weeks, auto workers have said they are worried their jobs will be eliminated altogether as a result of Biden’s mandates and that supply chains will be dominated by China, which controls nearly 70 percent of the world’s lithium, 95 percent of manganese, 73 percent of cobalt, 70 percent of graphite, and 63 percent of nickel.
While auto workers worry about their jobs being eliminated, automaker executives are set to score billions in lucrative tax credits thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which will incentivize EV production and sales.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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