If the strikes last a long time, they could cause dealers to run short of vehicles and prices could rise. The walkout could even be a factor in next year’s presidential election by testing Joe Biden’s proud claim to be the“Workers all over the world are watching this,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 60 unions with 12.5 million members.
“They could double our raises and not raise car prices and still make millions of dollars in profits,” Fain said. “We’re not the problem. Corporate greed is the problem.” Many say it’s time to get the concessions back because the companies are making huge profits and CEOs are raking in millions. They also want to make sure the union represents workers atthat the companies are building so workers have jobs making vehicles of the future.
Wolikow called this year’s talks huge, and said meeting the company in the middle isn’t good enough. “I think it needs to be a little bit closer to the top of what were asking for,” he said. The limited strikes will help to preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, which would run dry in about 11 weeks if all 146,000 workers went on strike.
It’s tough to say just how long it will take for the strikes to cut inventories at dealers and start hurting the companies’ bottom lines.