Mack Trucks workers go on strike as labor unrest drags on at Detroit automakers

(TND) — More auto workers are on strike after union members rejected a tentative five-year contract with Mack Trucks.

They now join fellow United Auto Workers members who have been striking against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis since the middle of September.

There are now more than 30,000 UAW members across 22 states walking the picket lines, the union said Monday.

“I’m inspired to see UAW members at Mack Trucks holding out for a better deal, and ready to stand up and walk off the job to win it,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a news release.

Nearly 4,000 UAW members at Mack Trucks facilities in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida walked out after nearly three-fourths of the union workers rejected the labor deal on the table.

The UAW said members are still unhappy over various issues, including pay increases, job security and work schedules.

Mack President Stephen Roy said the company is “surprised and disappointed” about the contract rejection, but he said Mack remains “committed to the collective bargaining process.”

Meanwhile, the strikes against GM, Ford and Stellantis (the maker of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles) are now entering their fifth week.

The targeted strikes started with about 13,000 workers at three plants and have expanded to include about 25,000 UAW members employed by Detroit's big domestic automakers at dozens of locations.

But Fain said during a social media livestream last week that they “are making significant progress” in negotiations, and he lauded “a major breakthrough” after GM agreed to place its electric-vehicle battery manufacturing work under the union’s national master agreement.

Fain said that the concession “dramatically changed negotiations.”

The automakers are in the midst of a seismic shift away from building gas-powered cars in favor of EVs.

They’re spending billions to make the cars, the batteries and to build out a charging network to help grease the wheels of EV adoption.

The EV batteries are made at joint ventures between the domestic automakers and foreign companies, and the joint ventures have been set up as standalone entities.

The UAW wants the EV plants fully unionized. Most are not.

Labor scholar Marick Masters said putting the battery joint ventures at GM under the union’s national master agreement is a major concession by the company.

“It remains to be seen what the wage levels will be at the sites, but the UAW will clearly expect to get a similar concession from Ford and Stellantis,” Masters said via email.

We are getting closer to a breaking point in negotiations, said Masters, of Wayne State University in Detroit.

But gaps remain.

The union will continue to apply pressure on the companies to get a "record contract,” he said.

Negotiations are separate but concurrent with the automakers.

The union wants big wage increases, the elimination of compensation tiers, restored cost-of-living adjustments, the return of defined benefit pensions, retiree medical benefits, increases to retiree pay, the right to strike over plant closures, and more paid time off.

Fain told his members that they are “fighting for economic justice.”

The UAW said Ford first offered 9% raises. It’s now up to 23%, with GM and Stellantis coming in at 20%.

“It’s not where we need it to be, but it’s a hell of a lot further along,” Fain said.

The UAW also said it has won concessions on other demands, including two of the automakers agreeing to return “to the cost-of-living adjustment formula that protected against the worst of inflation.”

But Fain said they’re not satisfied yet, and they’re “fighting like hell for real retirement security.”

Masters said the rejection of the tentative agreement by Mack Trucks workers reflects the high expectations that the UAW has raised.

It means that the UAW will have to get as much as it possibly can to secure ratification of a deal with GM, Ford and Stellantis.

“If the EV concession is a breakthrough that can help other pieces of an agreement fit together, then a tentative contract may come in the very near term,” Masters said.