Detroit — A sea of red T-shirt-wearing UAW members and their supporters gathered Friday afternoon, flanked on one side by General Motors Co.’s headquarters and on the other by Huntington Place, where auto industry insiders gathered gathering for the Detroit auto show’s swanky charity preview gala amid the union’s strike at plants run by all three Detroit automakers.
Wielding a sign and dancing along to upbeat music, UAW Local 249 member Camalee Hefty was among those rallying in support of the union’s “Stand-Up Strike” strategy that shut down GM’s Wentzvlle Assembly Plant in Missouri, Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, and Stellantis NV’s Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio.
Hefty, 46, works at Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant, which assembled F-150 trucks and Transit vans. Hefty said she couldn’t technically afford the plane ticket here but couldn’t resist the chance to be part of history and support her fellow members.
“I feel great. I’m feeling empowered. We have great leadership and a plan to win,” she said.
Hefty said that after more than 20 years in the industry and about eight years at Ford, she still is not at the top of the wage scale — a major issue in the ongoing contract negotiations as the union seeks to drastically reduce the progression period for workers. The companies so far have agreed to cut it in half from eight to four years.
“We are the working class,” said Hefty. “We build America and the corporate elite are tearing us down.”
Attendees included UAW President Shawn Fain, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been an outspoken supporter of the union’s fight for higher wages and benefits since early May, when Fain toured Washington to rally support.
In the last 50 years, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in this country, Sanders told the crowd.
“Instead of going from the top down to the bottom, it’s gone from the bottom up to the top,” he said. “We’re going to reverse that trend.”
He highlighted the rising salaries of the CEOs of the Detroit Three automakers and asked them to consider what it’s like to work paycheck-to-paycheck.
“It is time for you to treat your employees with the respect and dignity they deserve,” Sanders said.
He pushed back on analyses focusing on the strike’s potential impact on the economy, arguing the nation’s economy would be improved by increased wages and benefits for the workers who build American vehicles.
“When you have autoworkers who can’t afford to buy the cars they make, that is bad for the economy,” he said.
Michigan politicians who are members of the House Progressive Caucus — Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Shri Thanedar of Detroit and Debbie Dingell of Ann Arbor — also attended the rally.
Tlaib released a video days ahead of the strike detailing how her father immigrated to the country at 19 from Palestine and joined the UAW when he got a job at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant. He “was able to find human dignity in the workplace on the line at Ford Motor Co. because he was a part of a larger family called the UAW,” Tlaib recalled in an interview Friday on MSNBC.
Dingell, who formerly worked as an executive at GM, said in a statement Friday that “these are the most important negotiations I have witnessed in my lifetime.”
“The industry is at a crossroads and its future is at stake,” she said. “The auto workers were the ones who gave when this industry was in trouble over a decade ago. … They deserve a decent wage and benefits, and need to be assured that as the industry undergoes transition, their livelihoods are safe, and they won’t be left behind.”
Other Democratic lawmakers from Michigan similarly issued statements Friday supporting the UAW, and some headed to the Wayne Assembly Plant to walk the picket line with workers.
Michigan’s Republican members of Congress who commented on the strike said they understand autoworkers’ anxiety over the future of the industry but urged them to come to an agreement to avoid further economic impact. They also blamed the strike on Democratic policies aimed at accelerating electric vehicle production.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, said both the UAW and the automakers need to “grasp the gravity” of a strike on suppliers, which are already fragile.
“Our domestic supply chain should not be a bargaining chip to gamble with,” he said. “However, the uneasiness and uncertainty felt by autoworkers is justifiable with policies coming from Washington that threaten the future of the domestic auto industry. Rank-and-file union members in my district and across the country understand that the Biden administration’s rush-to-green agenda is simply incompatible with a vibrant future for the auto industry and domestic manufacturing jobs.”
Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, said in a statement that the Biden administration has “signaled that it doesn’t care about UAW workers” by passing policies that are “forcing our country into a comply-or-die EV mandate that has already burned billions in American taxpayer dollars.”
And Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Caledonia, said in a statement that the administrations policies have “pushed automakers and autoworkers into a corner… This strike will have harmful effects on Michigan’s economy and families, and it is being caused by the policies of this out-of-touch administration.”