United Auto Employees members strike the Common Motors Lansing Delta Meeting Plant on September 29, 2023 in Lansing, Michigan.
Invoice Pugliano | Getty Pictures
DETROIT – A shift in technique by the United Auto Employees union this week has some analysts questioning if the events are — maybe, counterintuitively — getting nearer to a deal.
On Wednesday the union initiated a surprise work stoppage at Ford Motor’s Kentucky Truck Plant. The strike includes 8,700 employees and impacts probably the most essential plant, by far – chargeable for $25 billion in income yearly – that the union has walked out on because the strikes began Sept. 15. It is anticipated to shortly have a ripple impact on different Ford vegetation and suppliers.
It additionally ushered in what UAW President Shawn Fain characterised as a “new part” of strikes and contract negotiations with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, giving the union the aspect of shock to maintain the automakers on edge in the course of the ongoing negotiations, Fain instructed members in a Friday presentation.
“We’re coming into a brand new part of this combat and it calls for a brand new strategy,” Fain mentioned Friday. “We’re finished ready till Fridays to escalate our strike.
“We’re ready at any time to name on extra locals to face up and stroll out,” he mentioned.
Till this week, Fain had introduced the entire union’s new strikes on Fridays, throughout what has grow to be a weekly livestreamed replace for union members.
Some Wall Avenue analysts and trade consultants assume this week’s shift in technique may very well be an indication that UAW leaders really feel a take care of Ford is shut, and that they are rising strain as a tactic to get the deal over the end line — and to assist promote a possible tentative deal to their members.
“We proceed to consider the escalation at [Ford] this week is an indication the talks could also be coming to an finish. KY Truck is probably going Ford’s most worthwhile plant, and due to this fact the strike is the best degree of escalation, other than a nationwide strike,” Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan wrote in a Friday observe. “This escalation would seemingly be finished to push for closing phrases.”
However the UAW’s leaders could also be trying another step forward, to the method of promoting a tentative take care of Ford to their members. The considering is that to persuade members to ratify a possible new contract, UAW President Shawn Fain and the union’s management might want to persuade autoworkers that the union has fought as arduous as potential to have their calls for met. Hanging Ford’s most worthwhile manufacturing unit may be a method to try this.
Wolfe Analysis’s Rod Lache argued the Kentucky strike might enable UAW management to say that they did all that may very well be finished, particularly if it results in one or two extra concessions from Ford.
“In one other week or two, Fain ought to have the ability to credibly announce that he has pressured Ford into one final capitulation (battery vegetation?), and that UAW members have secured the previous few ounces of wage, advantages, and job safety concessions that they will get,” Lache wrote Thursday to buyers.
Manufacturing facility employees and UAW union members kind a picket line exterior the Ford Motor Co. Kentucky Truck Plant within the early morning hours on October 12, 2023 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Luke Sharrett | Getty Pictures
Profitable over employees
Solely about 34,000 U.S. automakers with the businesses, or roughly 23% of UAW members lined by the expired contracts with the Detroit automakers, are presently on strike.
“Hitting a really high-dollar, high-profitable plant, it definitely will get Ford’s consideration in a short time,” mentioned Artwork Wheaton, a labor professor on the Employee Institute at Cornell College. “It additionally sends an enormous message to Stellantis and Common Motors.”
Wheaton argues the escalation in Kentucky may be the start. There are lots extra vegetation the union might hit for every of the automakers, together with the full-size pickup truck vegetation owned by all three and enormous SUV vegetation at GM and Stellantis.
GM prevented a strike at its most worthwhile SUV plant in Texas final week with a last-minute offer to incorporate battery cell plant employees below the corporate’s nationwide settlement, nonetheless particulars relating to how that will likely be finished are believed to be nonetheless being negotiated.
Whereas Fain declined to broaden strikes in opposition to GM and Stellantis Friday, Wells Fargo’s Langan thinks that does not essentially imply they’re spared.
“The dearth of GM & STLA strike right this moment, though each haven’t matched F’s supply, could be according to the UAW holding out probably the most worthwhile vegetation for a closing push,” he wrote in a Friday observe.
Different outcomes?
All of that tea-leaf studying apart, fast escalation-turned-resolution is only one potential consequence.
One other consists of the automakers holding out for the union to deplete its assets, particularly its strike and protection fund. Or, the UAW might proceed rotating strikes or submitting extra unfair labor observe fees in opposition to the businesses. Yet one more consequence might see the edges in search of mediation or authorized assets.
“I believe they have to be getting near some kind of an settlement, otherwise you simply must conclude an affordable deal is just not within the making — and that that is actually extra a matter of a take a look at of will than the rest,” mentioned Marick Masters, a enterprise professor at Wayne State College in Detroit who focuses on labor points.
An automaker additionally might submit what’s generally known as a “final, finest and closing supply,” which, because it states, is usually a closing proposal when bargainers have reached an deadlock.
Ford could also be near that time. An government mentioned Thursday the automaker was “at the limit” of what it may well supply UAW by way of financial concessions.

The Detroit automakers have largely given into lots of the union’s calls for, however not all of them.
The businesses have not waved the white flag on calls for for a 32-hour workweek — which was at all times a nonstarter for the businesses and which has largely fallen out of union speaking factors — and a 40% wage improve.
Ford was as much as a document 23% wage improve in its current contract proposal, with the others not far behind.
Then there’s the excellent points of advantages for retirees in addition to a return to conventional pension plans and future battery plant jobs and employees.
Trade consultants and sources acquainted with the talks consider whatever the consequence, the contracts could have ripple results on the businesses probably in the way in which of reorganizations, value cuts and future investments and jobs.
A former high-ranking bargainer for one of many automakers instructed CNBC that it is practically assured that the businesses will reduce union jobs by way of product allocation, plant closures or different means to offset elevated labor prices as soon as the contracts are set.
“They’ll must pay up. The query is how a lot,” mentioned the longtime bargainer, who agreed to talk on the situation of anonymity. “This finally ends up with fewer jobs. That is how the automakers reduce prices.”