WAYNE, Mich. (WXYZ) — On day four of the United Auto Workers’ historic strike against the Big Three, members camped out at every gate of the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne.
Monday afternoon, semitrucks were lined up on the road up to the plant as striking workers blocked the driveway holding the line.
“It's about change. It’s about equality,” UAW member Brian Keller said. “One of key pillars to the UAW is equality, and you don't have equality if you have a tier and temp system… The CEO’s are getting anywhere between $21 million and $29 million and they've got the nerve to tell us to be viable and competitive?”
Keller works for Stellantis and has been a UAW member for nearly 25 years. Although his plant isn’t on strike, he drove to Michigan assembly after work to man the line.
“I figured well after work, I’ll come down here and support my union brothers and sisters because we’re all fighting for the same cause,” Keller said.
For those picketers officially on strike, they’ll receive $500 a week in strike pay. But for the 600 workers temporarily laid off by Ford due to the strike, it was unclear at first if they’d get anything.
“Yeah it was (unclear). We were very confused if we were going to get it or not,” said Halle Heinz, one of the employees laid off. “They were trying to hold as much strike pay as they could in order to make everything survive.”
Heinz found out she was being laid off early Friday shortly after the strike began and was told she couldn’t get unemployment. During a rally Friday, UAW President Shawn Fain was asked whether Heinz and her coworkers would also receive that $500 a week.
“Yeah if we have to go that route, yes,” Fain said. “Our members are going to be taken care of no matter what happens. We’ll take care of them. They have our back — we have their back.”
“We were not getting paid at first until Sunday came along,” Heinz said. “We had a meeting and were able to come out here and start helping out like we supposed to… Now they got it fixed that where, you know, we can get out here to start striking and get paid.”
Now Heinz is on the payroll and on the line. She and fellow union members say they expect more strikes to come if demands aren’t met, and many say they’ll be ready.
“Me personally, I’ve been ready since 2007,” Keller said. “I'm definitely ready to do this.”
The UAW began the strike with $825 million in their strike fund. Right now, they’re spending roughly $6.5 million a week in strike pay.
Monday night, Fain set a new deadline of Friday at noon for more plants to strike if contract agreements are met.
“If we don’t make serious progress by noon on Friday, September 22, more locals will be called on to stand up and join the strike,” Fain said. “That will mark more than a week since our first members walked out, and that will mark more than a week of the Big Three failing to make progress in negotiations toward reaching a deal that does right by our members.”
Fain also applauded the UAW members currently on the picket line.
Stellantis, one of the Big Three automakers, said that negotiations with the United Auto Workers resumed Monday and they are characterizing the "discussion" as " constructive."
