Auto Workers On Strike – What It Means for Car Shoppers

Update 10/30/2023 — All three of Detroit’s major automakers appear to have reached agreements with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which could bring an end to the strike. Both Ford and Stellantis (parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and others) have confirmed tentative agreements with the union. Multiple media reports say General Motors (GM) will do the same tonight.

The agreements may not bring an instant end to the strike. After a tentative agreement, several steps remain.

The union has a board of member representatives for each automaker. Those boards must approve the tentative agreements. That sends them to a vote of the full membership, which doesn’t happen immediately.

In Ford’s case, the union has taken more than a week to schedule a full vote of members. UAW leaders use the interim to educate members on what the agreement says before scheduling a vote.

But, in the case of Ford, members returned to work immediately even before voting. Assuming the union follows the same pattern with GM and Stellantis, all of America’s car factories could be working again within 24 hours.

Our original story continues below

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The United Auto Workers union (UAW) is on strike. For the first time in history, the union has walked off the job at all three of Detroit’s biggest automakers at the same time. But, though it’s headline news across the country, it has had limited effect on the prices or availability of new cars.

The union is gradually stepping up pressure on the automakers, and a recent step may mean bigger impacts soon.

Not every company is affected – the strike impacts only the traditional Big Three Detroit-based automakers. Not every car built by the Big Three is affected. The union has chosen a unique incremental strike strategy that means most factories aren’t affected yet. Friday, September 22, workers at parts distribution centers for two of the three walked off the job. That could affect more factories, and make it difficult for dealers to get the parts needed for service and repairs.

Kelley Blue Book analysts believe the strike, historic as it is, may not have much short-term meaning for most car shoppers. The longer it drags on, however, the more likely it is to affect your plans.

But the strike won’t hit every automaker, and it won’t affect every model. Read on to understand what to expect.

Not Every Company Is Affected

Dozens of companies sell cars in America, many under several brand names. Only three companies selling under 13 brand names have workers represented by the UAW.

Those three – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (the parent company of Chrysler, Jeep, and others) are traditionally known as “the Big Three.”

The union can only strike those three. So far, it is conducting a limited strike against some, but not all vehicles the Big Three make.

The three are America’s largest automakers by most measures, and they manufacture about 40% of the cars Americans buy most years. That leaves about 60% of cars out of the strike completely.

Many foreign automakers own factories in the U.S., but the UAW has had little success in organizing those factories.

The Big Three and their brands are:

Company	Brands
Ford Motor Company	· Ford · Lincoln
General Motors	· Buick · Cadillac · Chevrolet · GMC
Stellantis	· Alfa Romeo · Chrysler · Dodge · Fiat · Jeep · Maserati · Ram

Other automakers, including foreign makes like Toyota and BMW and domestic newcomers like Tesla, have no unionized workers in the U.S. Many have factories here, but their workers aren’t unionized and can’t strike.

So, if the strike drags on, you could find it hard to locate a Ram 1500 you want at a fair price because that factory may have been shuttered for weeks. But Toyota factories will be filling lots with Tundras you might like instead.

Not Every Car Those Companies Make Could Be Affected

So far, the strike has affected just a handful of cars manufactured by the Big Three. The list could expand. But there are some cars it won’t affect under any circumstances.

The Union Is Not Striking Every Plant

Many unions pay their workers part of their salaries when they are on strike. Union workers pay part of their monthly dues into a “strike fund,” which the UAW uses to pay them $500 a week when they walk off the job.

At the start of the strike, the UAW reported that it held about $825 million in its strike fund. While that number sounds impressive, the union has about 150,000 members eligible to strike. If they all walked out at once, the strike fund could last less than three months.

To stretch the fund, the union has adopted a unique tactic. It is, so far, striking just a handful of plants and parts warehouses. The union adds additional plants to the strike over time to increase pressure on the automakers if it remains unhappy with negotiations.

Union President Shawn Fain told workers in a Facebook Live event announcing the strike that this so-called “stand-up strike” strategy is designed to “keep them guessing” about the consequences of not agreeing to a new contract.

That has stopped production of the following models:

But the union’s strategy means it could shut down more factories, halting production of more models, at any time. We’ll update this list if the union adds more factories to the strike.

A union local in Alabama is holding a separate strike at a supplier, ZF, which makes axles for some Mercedes vehicles. Settling that strike would not affect the larger Big Three strike, and Mercedes has not released any information about production slowdowns.

Recent Move Could Trigger Parts Shortages

On Friday, September 22, the union stepped up pressure when workers walked out of 38 parts distribution centers run by GM and Stellantis.

The union did not take the same step with Ford, Fain said, as good-faith gesture because “we have made some real progress with Ford” in negotiations.

The move means the supply of parts to both dealerships and factories will slow down. That could mean owners of GM and Stellantis vehicles have difficulty getting needed service and repairs. It could also slow or shut down factories further down the parts distribution line. Neither company has acknowledged any effects yet.

Some Models Are Built At Non-Union Factories

Every affected company operates non-union plants outside the U.S. The union can’t strike those.

In some cases, cars are built only in non-union factories. For instance, the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric SUV is built only in Mexico and China (Mach-E models sold in the U.S. are shipped here from Mexico).

In other cases, cars are built at multiple factories – some in the U.S. and some outside of it. Ford’s Transit van, for instance, is built in the U.S. but also in China, Turkey, Uruguay, and Vietnam. Ford would face some import restrictions in bringing Transits built overseas to the U.S. That could raise prices. But Ford could attempt to make up some production that way.

What Cars Could Be Affected By a Strike?

The UAW is an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). According to the AFL-CIO, union-built vehicles for sale in 2023 include:

Note that some of these vehicles receive final assembly in Canada, where Canada’s Unifor union represents workers. All include significant parts built by UAW workers, so production of all is likely to halt in a UAW strike.

Unifor also has contracts with the Big Three ending soon and has threatened its own strike later this month.

What It Means for Prices

Car prices will likely be unaffected in the early days of a strike.

All of the Big Three prepared for a strike by building up inventory so their dealers would still have something to sell even if factories fell silent.

But strikes don’t work unless companies start to lose money.

So, to be effective, any strike would need to last long enough that the affected automakers ran low on inventory and prices started to rise. With the strike affecting just a handful of models and automakers sitting on a stockpile of pre-built vehicles, that may not happen for a long time.

From a profit standpoint, we should note that the three most important vehicles to the Big Three are the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram 1500. Those three, in that order, are America’s best-selling vehicles most months.

It’s Starting to Impact Full-Size Trucks

The best-selling model at each of the Big Three is a full-size pickup. The union fired a significant shot on October 24 when workers — the Ram 1500.

An old industry rule of thumb tells automakers to keep about a 60-day supply of each model in stock.

At publication time, Ford had 98 days’ worth of F-150 models in inventory, Chevrolet had 81 days’ worth of Silverados, and Ram had more than a 107-day supply of Ram 1500 trucks. The Big Three appear to have salted away trucks so they’d have plenty to sell deep into a strike.

What Do Workers Want?

UAW leaders want a significant raise for their members. The union claims that automaker CEOs now earn about 40% more than they did the last time the two sides negotiated a contract. They want workers to see a similar raise.

Shortly before the strike, reports emerged that the union may have lowered its demand into the 30s. The union has also asked for a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay.

Union leaders have also said they want to eliminate a two-tier contract system that can see new hires earn 25% less than veteran workers.

The union wants fixed cost-of-living adjustments that increase workers’ salaries yearly – an old industry practice abandoned in favor of profit-sharing after the post-2008 recession. It wants a return to defined-benefit pension plans rather than less-secure 401(k) retirement plans.

The union argues that workers agreed to many of those conditions to help automakers through the post-2008 recession. Now that that recession is over, they want recession-era concessions to end.

The UAW is also concerned about job security for workers as automakers shift toward electric vehicles (EVs).

EVs have fewer moving parts than internal combustion engine cars. The people who make moving parts have concerns.

The Big Three have opened several EV battery plants as joint ventures with battery companies. Those plants generally aren’t unionized. Companies argue that the plants aren’t making cars and aren’t subject to UAW contracts. The union disagrees and wants so-called card-check agreements that allow them to represent workers at battery plants.

GM, for its part, disagrees that EVs will mean fewer employees. GM manufacturing chief Gerald Johnson told investors recently, “We actually expect our employment numbers to grow in 2024.”

Negotiators often stake out more extreme positions than what they’re willing to accept. Negotiators may have designed some of these positions to be lowered at the negotiating table.

What Are the Automakers Offering?

Automakers say they need flexibility to address the challenge of transitioning to EVs and competition from companies with non-union plants.

Industry publication Automotive News reports that all three have offered wage increases of around 20%. They have not offered to eliminate the two-tiered wage system but have proposed letting workers move to the higher tier after four years.

All three have proposed a new system that would enact cost of living adjustments tied to the consumer price index, but that would not kick in for at least four years. Some are also offering ratification bonuses – one-time payments workers would get for agreeing to a new contract.

None have offered a return to pension plans or a 32-hour work week. Negotiators have not publicly addressed the status of battery plant workers.

This Is a Different UAW

Observers say the UAW is acting more aggressively now than it has in recent years. That’s probably true because of a major shift in union leadership.

A corruption probe by the U.S. Justice Department recently saw 12 union officials and three leaders of Fiat-Chrysler (the company now known as Stellantis) convicted for colluding and financial improprieties. The union reformed its governance afterward. In 2023, it held new leadership elections – the first UAW election in which all members could vote.

Fain – an electrician by training – ran an insurgent campaign and narrowly defeated the former president, who had spent his career in union leadership. Union elections are often tightly scripted affairs in which outgoing leaders choose their successors to be rubber-stamped by elected boards. The UAW’s election, with members voting and an outsider winning by a nose, was an earthquake in the union movement.

Fain made no secret of his aggressive plans. As the votes were being counted, he told The New York Times, “This is the end of company unionism, where the companies and the union work together in a friendly way, because it hasn’t been good for our members.”

The union’s waning influence may be growing again. Reuters reports that UAW membership, which has declined most years since its 1979 peak, rose 3% last year.

How Long Could It Last?

A strike can be understood as a contest to see which will give out first – the union’s strike fund or the automaker’s supply of cars to sell. In this highly unusual strike, both are moving targets. That makes predicting the length of this one impossible.

Many media outlets report that the union’s strike fund can last a maximum of three months if all members strike at once. But the UAW’s strategy of limited, local strikes could stretch it out much further.

Unions also can move money into strike funds from other sources.

The automakers, meanwhile, have a significant stockpile of cars to sell. And the union’s unique one-plant-at-a-time strategy means they’re still building most cars.

So, despite public posturing by both sides about a strike’s consequences, this strike has had few consequences for anyone to date. That doesn’t suggest a quick ending.

The last major strike to hit the auto industry came in 2019 when UAW workers walked off of some GM plants. It started on September 15 and ended on October 25. Before that, the most recent strike (in 2007) had lasted just three days.

The two sides could come to an agreement at any time. But both appear to have planned their strategies for an extremely long strike.