Local UAW prepares for a possible strike

Strike preparations are underway at Sharonville's Ford transmission plant as the UAW tries to work out a new contract with Detroit's Big Three automakers.

President of Local 863 Todd Turner says Ford union employees in Sharonville are behind a strike if no new contract can be worked out by 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

“We have just under 1,800 members at the Ford plant that are with us. And every single one of them, we voted 99.9% to authorize a strike if that were to come. So, our plant is fully behind our national negotiators Vice President Chuck Browning and President Shawn Fain,” Turner says.

The union is trying to work out a deal with Ford, GM and the owner of Chrysler. The UAW initially sought a 20% wage hike upon ratification and four annual 5% hikes, but has trimmed those hikes to around 36% in total, two sources told Reuters.

Rank and file members told NPR that they need a raise because the cost of everything else is going up.

"Everything's going up — the cost of food, gas, mortgage interest rates," Marcelina Pedraza, a Ford electrician in Chicago says. "A lot of people haven't been able to have a safety net anymore."

UAW, which represents 150,000 workers at General Motors, Stellantis and Ford, is not alone in asking for big pay raises over the course of their contract. NPR reports in recent months, workers across industries have fought for — and, in a handful of cases, won — around 50% wage increases over the next four to five years, as they call out years of stagnant wages and robust company profits.

The Detroit Free Press reports, “As of late Tuesday afternoon, two union sources who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak said there had been a lot of movement at the bargaining tables with proposals and counterproposals. Still, there remained a lot of work to do to reach a tentative agreement by the contract expiration at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.”