UAW moves toward Stellantis strike as tensions escalate

The United Auto Workers will ask members to green light a strike against Stellantis NV, escalating an already tense standoff with one of the world’s largest car manufacturers.

The union will hold strike authorization votes at several local chapters in the coming days, seeking to pressure the company into abiding by investment stipulations in the agreement that ended a six-week strike last year, union President Shawn Fain said in an impassioned speech broadcast online Tuesday night.

“Stellantis has declared war on the American working class,” Fain said. “The company has decided to respond to our support by abandoning their workers, their dealers, their consumers and the American taxpayer.”

It was the latest show of force by the union leader who’s increasingly soured on Stellantis, the maker of Jeep and Dodge models, in addition to European brands like Fiat. On Monday, the UAW filed federal unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the company of stonewalling plans on product commitments it made in last year’s collective bargaining agreement.

Unions typically can’t strike while a contract is in effect. But Fain highlighted new language in the 2023 agreement that he said allows the UAW to withhold its labor if Stellantis reneges on product and investment commitments. The authorization votes would give union leaders the power to call a strike if they feel negotiators have reached an impasse.

“We all, every plant, are at risk if the company can violate these agreements,” Fain said.

Fain first warned of the potential work stoppage last month, when the UAW said Stellantis had informed union officials that the company won’t open an auto-parts hub in Belvidere, Illinois, this year as originally planned.

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Stellantis said in an emailed statement that Fain “has provided no data or information to back up his claims” that the automaker has violated its agreements with the union.

“He continues to willfully damage the reputation of the company with his public attacks, which is helpful to no one including his members,” Stellantis said. “We would all be better served if these issues were addressed across the table with productive, respectful and forward-looking dialogue.”

As part of its $19 billion contract that ended last year’s strike, Stellantis agreed to create an auto parts hub in Belvidere after consolidating parts distribution centers across the country. It also agreed to restart its idled Belvidere assembly plant in 2027. The plant, which at one point employed 5,000 workers, was supposed to run two shifts to build a mid-size pickup truck. At the time, Stellantis also said it would build a $3.2 billion battery plant in Illinois with a still-to-be-determined partner that would employ 1,300 people when it opens in 2028.

The UAW now says Stellantis won’t begin stamping operations at the facility in 2025 or start producing a mid-size truck there in 2027, as was agreed to during negotiations.

In his speech Tuesday, Fain accused Stellantis executives — in remarkably personal terms — of trying to punt the reopening of Belvidere until after the collective bargaining agreement expires.

“We aren’t the problem. The market isn’t the problem. Carlos Tavares is the problem,” Fain said pointedly of the Stellantis chief executive officer.

Internal drama

The company has also found itself at the center of internal UAW drama. In May, Fain sidelined the union vice president overseeing Stellantis, saying he shirked his duties in enforcing the contract. That sparked an investigation from the union’s federal watchdog — appointed in the wake of a sprawling corruption scandal under two previous presidents — after the vice president accused Fain of using his office to benefit his fiancée and her sister, both UAW employees. The investigation is ongoing.

That hasn’t slowed down the union’s fight with Stellantis, however. In addition to accusing executives of backtracking on plans for Belvidere, several UAW locals have filed contract grievances over the company’s attempt to move Dodge Durango production out of the US, something the union says is also a violation of its national agreement. The Dodge Durango SUV is currently made at Stellantis’ Jefferson North plant in Detroit.

Stellantis said it’s “simply not true” that the company has confirmed plans to move the Durango.

The automaker, formed from the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Group, has seen its sales and market share plunge over the past year after aggressive price increases and an aging lineup left its vehicles competitively disadvantaged. In July, Stellantis reported a 48% drop in net income for the first half of the year.

Tavares has been laying off auto workers in Michigan and Ohio and offering buyouts to salaried employees at the company’s US headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, while outsourcing engineering jobs to lower-cost countries like Brazil, Mexico and India.

— By Ian Kullgren and Gabrielle Coppola (Bloomberg)