On January 22, the United Auto Workers announced a major victory in a struggle against one of the largest auto manufacturers in the United States, Stellantis. “We are excited to announce that we have successfully moved Stellantis to keep the promise they made in our 2023 agreement to our union and our hardworking membership,” read a statement issued from UAW leadership. According to the union, the automanufacturing giant has agreed to reopen the shuttered Belvidere Assembly Plant in 2027 and to build the next generation Dodge Durango car at the Detroit Assembly Complex.
In 2023, members of the UAW went on a historic strike against the three largest automakers in the United States: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Workers won historic victories in their contract with the three companies, including ensuring that their wages will rise to over USD 40 per hour.
Workers also won the reopening of the shuttered Stellantis assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois. 1,200 workers were displaced as a result of Belvidere’s closure, scattering workers all over the country and devastating the local community. For over a year, Stellantis had dug in its heels, refusing to comply with the contract that workers had fought over and delaying the re-opening of the Belvidere plant. As a result, in September the UAW had announced the potential for a new strike against Stellantis, urging the auto giant to keep its promises to workers.
The UAW congratulated workers for the victory against Stellantis. “This victory is a testament to the power of workers standing together and holding a billion-dollar corporation accountable,” read a statement by UAW President Shawn Fain and UAW Stellantis Department Director Kevin Gotinsky. “Thank you to the thousands of members and leaders who rallied, marched, filed grievances, and talked to coworkers. Your solidarity forced Carlos Tavares out as CEO of this company, and it’s been a game-changer.”
On December 1, Portuguese business executive Carlos Tavares abruptly resigned as Stellantis CEO, a change that was welcomed by the UAW.
In the midst of the 2023 autoworker strike, Peoples Dispatch spoke to former Belvidere worker Mimi, who had recently been relocated to the Tappan, New York Parts Distribution Center (PDC) from the shuttered Illinois plant. The company had provided her with inadequate relocation money, and so at the time of the strike she lived part time in hotels, and part time in her car, as she could not afford to find decent housing. She also had been suffering from the toll that years of repetitive work on the assembly line had taken on her body, having gone through multiple surgeries.
“I had to take a pay cut to come here,” Mimi told Peoples Dispatch. And as a result of repetitive work on the assembly line, her “body has been broken down,” she described.
“I’ve had to have a knee replaced. I’ve had four foot surgeries,” she said. “For my four foot surgeries, my toes were crossing up like this. They had to break my bones in order to straighten my toes out.”
Despite the struggles she faced, however, Mimi found the experience of standing up to her bosses during the 2023 strike to be an uplifting one. She describes seeing the shocked faces of management at the PDC she was working at when several workers walked off the job.
“Oh, my goodness. We saw them. Their faces were like [shocked], because they knew they were going to have to get on that line,” Mimi described. “They knew they were going to have to get in there and get some of that work done. The work that we do every single day.”