Detroit News: Marick Masters on UAW janitor strike

The United Auto Workers is signaling just how serious it is about a Saturday night deadline for all the workers it represents, by potentially ordering janitorial workers to strike and thereby pressure General Motors Co. to make a deal. An extended agreement between Aramark Corp., a janitorial services provider, and the UAW will end at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14, the same time and date the UAW agreement with the Detroit Three expires. If the hundreds of Aramark workers at five GM facilities were to go out on strike, GM auto workers may refuse to cross a picket line to go to work, experts say, which could put more pressure on GM to make a deal that the workers want. The move to terminate an extended agreement with Aramark is no coincidence, experts believe.

"The UAW is synchronizing its workforce so that should a strike be necessary that they would have the maximum effect," said Marick Masters, business professor and former director of labor studies at Wayne State University. "They are trying to say, 'Wherever we have the leverage to call people out, we are going to try to do that ... we are going to make this crippling.'"

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