[“We heard like everyone else at 10 p.m.,” a Stellantis
spokesperson says ]
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UAW’S “ELEMENT OF SURPRISE” STRIKE APPEARS TO BE WORKING  
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Sarah Lazare, Jeff Schuhrke
September 15, 2023
In These Times - Labor
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_ “We heard like everyone else at 10 p.m.,” a Stellantis
spokesperson says _

Supporters and workers cheer as United Auto Workers members go on
strike at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant on September 15, 2023 in
Wayne, , Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

 

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devoted entirely to the subject of socialism in America today. __THIS
SPECIAL ISSUE IS AVAILABLE NOW. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY.
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Workers walked off their shifts on September 14 at midnight to
cheering crowds as the United Auto Workers launched its first
simultaneous strike against the ​“Big Three”
automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The initial
work stoppages were not company-wide but instead targeted three
locations: GM’s Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Stellantis’
Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant
in Wayne, Mich., just outside Detroit. The plants employ some 12,700
of the roughly 150,000 UAW members who work for the Big Three.

The strike strategy, developed under the leadership of reform
challenger Shawn Fain, was defined by its element of surprise. The
union did not publicly reveal the strike targets until 10:00 p.m. on
September 14, two hours before the contracts jointly expired. The UAW
calls this [[link removed]] approach a ​“stand-up
strike,” which is ​“a new approach to striking. Instead of
striking all plants all at once, select locals will be called on to
​‘stand up’ and walk out on strike.” 

If the companies refuse to make concessions and bargaining drags on,
the strike may spread to other locals, the union says, but the
companies will not be informed of these locations ahead of time. The
intention is to keep the Big Three on their toes, never knowing where
the strike will happen next and forced to make costly preparations at
numerous locations.

In this case, the element of surprise appears to have worked, no small
feat for a huge operation in which all 150,000 UAW members were
prepared to strike.

“As far as I’m aware, we never got notification of where the union
may or may not strike. We heard like everyone else at 10 p.m.,” Jodi
Tinson, a corporate communications representative at Stellantis, told
_In These Times_.

Ford did not respond to _In These Times_’ inquiry and GM had
no comment.

Asked whether Stellantis prepared for strikes at locations that did
not walk out, costing the company money, Tinson said, ​“It’s the
nature of bargaining that there are rumors and speculation. … In
a normal situation like this when a union calls a strike, it’s
typically enterprise-wide. We were ready.”

“Strike preparation and contingency planning is part of our normal
process in a contract negotiation year — as a responsible
business we have to do that,” she added. ​“They made it very
clear that a strike was possible and we did everything we needed to
do to protect the business.” 

Tinson’s admission that Stellantis did not know which plant would be
struck represents a break from the more typical pattern of strikes
where employers have a good idea of what to expect and are able to
prepare accordingly.

“The strategy here is to maximize the hurt on the company and
minimize the impact on strikers and the union more generally,” Barry
Eidlin, professor of sociology at McGill University and an expert on
labor and social movements, tells _In These Times_. ​“They want to
preserve the strike fund and make sure workers aren’t enduring more
hardship than is necessary, and a key to that is to keep the
company guessing.”

“The fact that the company was kept guessing shows the strategy was
working,” Eidlin says.

Earlier this week, Fain called the stand-up strike
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​“our generation’s answer to the sit-down strike of the
1930s.” He specifically pointed to ​“the creativity, discipline
and defiant spirit” of the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937, which
resulted in the auto union winning recognition at the first of the Big
Three — General Motors — and is widely considered
a turning point in U.S. labor history.

Like the unfolding stand-up strike, the novelty of the sit-down tactic
used in Flint threw the employer off balance. 

The Flint strike began with workers occupying two of GM’s Fisher
Body Plants, but it did not end there. At a critical moment over
a month into the strike, the UAW escalated the work stoppage by
spreading it to Chevrolet Plant Number 4, the company’s crucial
motor assembly division. 

To take over the plant, the union daringly created a diversion by
letting it slip to company spies that they planned to occupy
a different factory — Chevrolet Plant Number 9 — even
convincing most of the workers that this was the target. GM’s hired
thugs and the Flint police were ready, violently stopping the sit-down
in Plant Number 9 before it could even begin. Meanwhile, a smaller
group of workers took over the real target: the unguarded Plant
Number 4.

Shortly after this successful maneuver, GM returned to the bargaining
table and the strike ended in a historic victory for the UAW.

Room for escalation and the element of surprise were pivotal factors
in the success of the Flint sit-down strike in 1937, and they may well
prove to be the key to a UAW victory in the stand-up strike of 2023.
As Fain put it about the ongoing stand-up strike, ​“This is
a strike that keeps the companies guessing as to where and when the
next local will walk out.”

_​​This article is a joint publication of _In These Times _and
_Workday Magazine [[link removed]]_, a non-profit
newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the
perspective of workers._

_--_

Sarah Lazare [[link removed]] is the
editor of Workday Magazine and a contributing editor for In These
Times. She tweets at @sarahlazare.

Jeff Schuhrke [[link removed]] is
a labor historian, educator, journalist and union activist who
teaches at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY
Empire State University in New York City. He has been an_ In These
Times _contributor since 2013. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSchuhrke.

* United Auto Workers Strike; Ford
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* General Motors
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* Stellantis; Shawn Fain;
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