- Union strategy: 13,000 autoworkers at the three Midwest plants, about 9% of the unionized workforce at the Big Three automakers, were the first to walk off the job. Now, more workers are temporarily out of work as the automakers are asking hundreds of non-striking workers not to show up to work.
- Negotiation and demands: The UAW’s call for a 40% pay increase is still intact as negotiations continue. Also on the docket are pensions, cost-of-living adjustments and quality-of-life improvements.
- Reactions: President Biden urged automakers to share their profits with workers as the strike tested his bid to be the “most pro-labor” president. He is dispatching Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, and Gene Sperling, a White House senior adviser, to Detroit to help with negotiations.
I reinforced Reagan’s precedent that workers’ right to strike is contingent on the effect to the economy that the strike would have, which is a blow to the strength of unions and to the possibility of a general strike, regardless of the results achieved for this set of workers. Not to mention that we don’t know if the unions could have got an even better deal if they had successfully engaged in the strike. Making good on his word helps to soften the blow, but it doesn’t erase it entirely