Van Buren Township — United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain on Tuesday likened the autoworkers’ strike for “economic and social justice” to the World War II “Arsenal of Democracy” during a visit with President Joe Biden to the picket line at a General Motors Co. parts distribution center at Willow Run.
The site is near where Ford Motor Co. workers in the 1940s produced B-24 Liberator bombers that helped the United States and its allies defeat Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II.
“Today, 80 years later, we find ourselves here again with the Arsenal of Democracy,” Fain said through a bullhorn following Biden’s remarks that the Detroit automakers should set up to restore what the union bargained away during the Great Recession and industry bailouts.
“It’s a different kind of Arsenal of Democracy,” Fain said. “And it’s a different kind of war we’re fighting. Today, the enemy isn’t some foreign country miles away. It’s right here in our own area. It’s corporate greed, and … the true liberators are the working-class people, all of you working your butts off on those lines to deliver great product for our companies.”
The union is seeking double-digit wage increases, job security protections and an end to tiered wages and benefits. Twelve days ago, it sent out workers from an assembly plant at each of the three automakers on strike, and on Friday, it expanded the walkout to all 38 of GM’s and Stellantis NV’s parts distribution centers in 20 states.
But UAW leaders and autoworkers have referenced the strike as something more than themselves — and the first presidential visit to a picket line in at least a century is indicative of that, labor experts say. Autoworkers nod to the past, saying the UAW used to set the standard for middle-class wages and benefits. Today, though, workers feel they have fallen behind, frequently noting pay for their colleagues starting on the job is comparable or even less than what they can make at fast-food chains or retailers like Target Corp.
The UAW’s demands in the ongoing talks include ending wage tiers and restoring cost-of-living adjustments, reviving pensions and retiree health care for all, which the union gave up when the Detroit automakers ran into financial difficulties in the late 2000s, culminating with federal aid going to Ford and the auto bailouts of Chrysler and GM in 2008-09 and their subsequent bankruptcies.
“I thought that was really good and significant,” said Kim McCartha, a UAW Local 900 member who works at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant that is on strike, about Fain invoking the history of Willow Run, “because of what they fought for back then, and then the way we have progressed and have come about, we shouldn’t be on the line right now. We gave up so much in 2008.
“It’s like we took a step back when we tried to help the company. Now, we’re not all the way back to the beginning, but we shouldn’t be there. We should be closer, be able to bridge and have it be a win-win for the company and for us as workers.”
Criticizing CEO pay levels and record profits, Fain suggested the greater implications of negotiations with the Detroit Three.
“We have the power,” he said. “The world is of our making. The economy is of our making. This industry is of our making. And as we’ve shown, when we withhold our labor, we can unmake it. And as we’re gonna continue to show when we win this fight with the Big Three, we’re going to remake it.”
A new contract with a single company or even the Detroit Three won’t reshape the economy altogether, labor experts say. Combined, though, with the wage gains and other wins of unions representing delivery truck drivers, pilots, railway workers and screenwriters that have been empowered by a strong labor market, corporate profits and the impact of inflation on paychecks, a new image of wealth distribution begins to emerge.
“I don’t think any one company or any one industry is going to affect the entire economy,” said Art Wheaton, an automotive industry specialist at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. “Put together, this labor movement and what is happening in this strong labor economy, you can start to make that change.”
The comparison to the Arsenal of the Democracy, though, might be a “bit of a stretch,” said Marick Masters, a management professor at Wayne State University.
“We’re not at war with the companies,” he said. “There’s an imbalance of wealth, and the way to correct that is by raising the economic position of those that are the lower 90% and not having so much corporate subsidization or corporate welfare that we have.
“Independent and free unions are a key element of a political democracy,” Masters said. “Workers through their unions are able to counterbalance corporate power to produce a more equitable distribution of wealth.”
Offers from the companies have included 20% not compounded wage increases, a $20 per hour starting wage for part-time, temporary/supplemental workers, and decreasing to four years the eight-year grow-in period to get to the top wage.
In a GM statement from spokesperson Patrick Morrissey, the company said it hopes to obtain an “agreement as quickly as possible that rewards our workforce and allows GM to succeed and thrive into the future.”
A Ford statement from spokesperson Jess Enoch emphasized what is at stake in the talks is “the long-term viability of the domestic auto industry, the industrial Midwest and good-paying manufacturing jobs in the U.S.”
Stellantis, in a statement from spokesperson Jodi Tinson, said it has made a “record offer” and that it requires a “balanced agreement that fairly rewards our workforce for their contribution to our success, without significantly disadvantaging Stellantis against our non-union competitors.”
In the 1940s, GM, Ford and Chrysler Corp. converted auto plants to make bombers, tanks and trucks. They simplified the machines to produce the equipment and put assembly lines to work. Instead of taking one month to build one plane, Ford, by 1944, was making one per hour at its Willow Run plant.
It all was done in close collaboration between the union and the automakers, Wheaton noted. With the need for planes and their parts so high, cost wasn’t the top factor, allowing for the hiring of workers and the expansion of the UAW. That was followed by skyrocketing demand for cars, which weren’t produced during the war to prioritize armaments production, once the conflict ended.
From this period came the beginnings of employer-provided health care and retirement benefits, especially in response to Congress issuing the ability to freeze wages and increases in union action and strikes, Wheaton said. Right-to-work policies also began to develop, prohibiting the requirement that employees who aren’t union members pay dues. The iconic “Rosie the Riveter” poster was part of a campaign from Westinghouse Electric Corp. to boost employee morale and lower the likelihood of labor unrest.
“That Arsenal of Democracy and all the labor fights, it’s all interrelated,” Wheaton said. “That same context for the Arsenal of Democracy, it grew the UAW, but it also started that right-to-work stuff. It’s been a messy and complicated history in the auto industry.”
As for the autoworkers’ current battle, a presidential visit certainly keeps on the pressure, Masters said.
“It keeps the energy level high and the focus of people in the community and the broader country on this issue,” he said, “which makes all parties on the issue know that they’re being closely watched and that the results will be evaluated by a wide audience on how this plays.”
bnoble@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @BreanaCNoble
