Layoffs Announced at Ford and GM Due to Ongoing Strike
Ford and General Motors revealed on Friday that they will be laying off 2,600 UAW (United Auto Workers) members as a result of the ongoing strike.
The union has had 12,700 of its workers on strike at three assembly plants since early Friday. However, this represents less than 10% of the 145,000 UAW members employed at over 100 factories, warehouses, and other facilities nationwide.
Ford disclosed that approximately 600 employees at the Michigan Assembly Plant's sub-assembly and stamping units, who were not participating in the strike, were instructed not to come to work on Friday. This was because their tasks could not be completed without the plant's final assembly and paint departments, which are currently on strike.
GM announced that about 2,000 UAW members at its Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas City will face layoffs early next week unless the strike ends quickly. This is because the plant relies on stampings from a nearby facility in Wentzville, Missouri, which is one of the three plants where workers are on strike. The Fairfax plant is responsible for manufacturing the Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac XT4 and is the sole factory producing these two models.
Stellantis, the company that manufactures vehicles for the U.S. market under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and Chrysler brands, has not yet reported any layoffs resulting from the strike.
When the UAW initially announced plans for targeted strikes at specific facilities, many industry experts anticipated that the union would focus on plants that produce components like engines and transmissions. According to Jeff Schuster, the global head of automotive for GlobalData, striking even one transmission plant could reduce a company's U.S. vehicle production by 75%.
“Two plants per company, you can pretty much idle North America,” Schuster commented.
However, the UAW chose to strike only three major assembly plants, one for each automaker, at least for the time being. This strategy has allowed most of the assembly lines to continue operating and kept the majority of the 145,000 UAW members employed.
The union has criticized the layoffs by GM and Ford and indicated its readiness to extend the strike to additional plants to increase pressure on the companies.
"If the Big Three decide to lay people off who aren’t on strike, that’s them trying to put the squeeze on our members to settle for less," UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement on Saturday. "With their record profits, they don’t have to lay off a single employee."
