On Tuesday night, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced that unionized auto workers could go on strike against auto giant Stellantis, after the megacorporation failed to comply with a contract that was the result of a historic strike by auto workers last year.
“In our 2023 negotiations, we secured USD 19 billion in product & investment commitments from Stellantis,” Fain outlined. This included a commitment to reopen a shuttered auto plant in Belvidere, Illinois, the closing of which had devastated that working class community. 1,200 workers were displaced as a result of Belvidere’s closure, scattering workers all over the country.
“We got everyone who lost their job at Belvidere put back on temporary layoff, meaning they’ll get sub-pay and healthcare until their job’s back in Belvidere,” said UAW Vice President Rich Boyer in an announcement at the time that autoworkers secured that historic contract in October of last year. “Under our contract, members from Belvidere who have been scattered across this country will have the right to return back to Belvidere.”
In his announcement last night, Fain articulated that Stellantis is now “admitting they do not plan to honor those plans.”
“They claim to be delaying the [Belvidere] assembly plant just by a year, but it is no coincidence that they want to push the date to beyond the life of this contract. But pushing the product outside the date of the agreement means we have no agreement. It means that Stellantis will make us renegotiate product for Belvidere when we come back to the bargaining table in 2028.”
As a result, Fain announced that the union has plans to vote to authorize a strike if the company refuses to stick to the contract.
“Next week, I will be meeting with the Stellantis Council and we will be charting out our path forward,” Fain said. “We fight back. We rally the American working class and take on corporate greed. We take on plant closures. We take on an economy that works for the benefit of the few and not the many.”
