The union’s strike against the Detroit Three continues, but the UAW’s president says that GM has now committed for future battery plant workers to be covered by the same contract as other workers.
UAW President Shawn Fain, wearing an « EAT THE RICH » T-shirt, passionately denounced auto executives for looking down on working-class auto workers in a speech on Facebook Live on Friday.
But first, Fain touted a major win: He said that GM had agreed to cover battery workers in the same contract as assembly line workers. That’s a significant breakthrough in talks, one car companies had previously said would be a non-starter.
The progress meant Fain did not announce an expansion of the strike as he has in each of the previous two weeks.
But the news that negotiations are moving along did not come with any relaxation of the intense, combative rhetoric that has become a trademark of Fain’s UAW presidency.
Here are six things to know about Fain’s fiery speech.There’s no deal yet
Fain touted substantial progress in talks with the Big Three automakers, including on things like wages and temp conversions, but he also made clear there was not yet a tentative deal with any company.
The Big Three and the union remain far apart on pensions and post-retirement healthcare, which the union wants restored and the companies say are financially untenable.
The plants and warehouses that are currently striking will remain on the picket line until a tentative agreement has been reached. Fain is doubling down on class rhetoric …
Fain has previously described this strike as a war between the working class and the billionaire class, a framing he leaned hard on throughout his speech.
« I’ll tell it to you straight. The billionaires and company executives think U.S. autoworkers are just dumb, » he told UAW members. « They think we don’t get it. »
« They look at me and they see some redneck from Indiana, » he added.
