More than 25,000 auto workers are now striking against General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis as negotiations stall over worries that President Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates will spur massive job losses and wage cuts down the road.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced that about 7,000 auto workers at GM’s Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Lansing, Michigan, and Ford’s Chicago Assembly in Chicago, Illinois, were joining the strike against the Big Three.
The UAW strike now includes auto workers at 43 plants across 21 states. Meanwhile, Fain said the UAW is making significant progress with Stellantis.
“We will win. Our strategy is working,” Fain said. “… over the last ten years, the Big Three have made a record quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits. Over the last six months, the Big Three have made a record $21 billion in total profits.”
Holding up negotiations, new reports reveal, is automakers’ commitment to carrying out Biden’s EV mandates that seek to shower billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies on companies producing EVs over gas-powered cars.
Members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket outside of the Michigan Parts Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan amid rumors that US President Joe Biden may stop by during his visit to Michigan to stand on the picket lines with UAW workers in Detroit, Michigan on September 26, 2023. (MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images)
United Auto Workers members march through downtown Detroit, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. The UAW is conducting a strike against Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
As Breitbart News has long detailed, the rapid EV transition by Biden and automakers could spell the elimination of millions of American auto jobs and slashed wages because the green vehicles demand far less labor to produce.
“Keep in mind, these battery plants don’t exist yet. They’re mostly joint ventures and they have not been organized by the UAW yet because the workers haven’t been hired, and won’t be for many years to come,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told the Detroit News on Friday. “They won’t scale until the next contract.”
Fain said the UAW and Ford “are far apart on core economic proposals” like the automakers’ planned four EV battery plants which he said “Farley himself says is going to cut 40 percent of our members’ jobs.”
Indeed, Farley bragged last year that EVs would be far easier for automakers to manufacture than gas-powered cars, noting they will include “half the fixtures, half the work stations, half the welds, [and] 20 percent less fasteners.”
“We designed it, because it’s such a simple product, to radically change the manufacturability,” Farley said.
Most prominently, auto workers worry their jobs will be eliminated altogether as a result 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.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
