The UAW announced its second “surprise” strike Monday as the costs to the economy mount from the the union's progressive “stand up” strikes now in their sixth week.
Through the first five weeks of the walkouts, which ended midnight Oct. 19, the cost to the auto industry surpassed $9.3 billion, according to an analysis by E. Lansing, Mich. boutique economic consultants,“The cost of this strike is now double that of the 2019 UAW strike against General Motors, with significant layoffs among supplier firms.
When Fain conducted a live webcast last Friday he didn't announce any new walkouts but he ran down issues the union still had with offers from all three companies and called out Stellantis on several points. Without warning on Monday morning, the union's 6,800 workers walked off their jobs at Sterling Heights Assembly, also known as SHAP. The plant in suburban Detroit produced the highly profitable and popular Ram 1500 pickup truck.