UAW members maintain picket indicators close to a General Motors Assembly Plant in Delta Township, Mich., on Sept. 29, 2023. The UAW is progressively tightening the screws on the Big Three automakers because it pursues new contracts.

Paul Sancya/AP

cover caption

toggle caption

Paul Sancya/AP

UAW members maintain picket indicators close to a General Motors Assembly Plant in Delta Township, Mich., on Sept. 29, 2023. The UAW is progressively tightening the screws on the Big Three automakers because it pursues new contracts.

Paul Sancya/AP

As the United Auto Workers strike is ready to enter its third week, one factor is for sure: The union is ready for a protracted struggle towards the Big Three automakers.

For the primary time in historical past, the UAW is placing towards the entire Big Three — GM, Ford and Stellantis — directly.

But it is progressively escalating the strike, as a substitute of getting all of its 146,000 auto employees stroll off their jobs directly. That strategy is meant to maintain the businesses guessing, making it troublesome to pinpoint precisely how lengthy the automakers can stand up to a strike and not using a main hit to their enterprise.

It’s additionally meant to stretch the UAW’s strike fund, which totalled $825 million earlier than the primary set of union employees walked off their jobs on Sept. 14.

The UAW’s strategic and focused strategy may make this a protracted struggle — however there are nonetheless practical limits to how lengthy any strike can final.

Here’s a have a look at the UAW’s technique, and the monetary impression it may have for the unions and the automakers.

For automakers, lots of blows however no huge punch

So far, the UAW has shunned focusing on probably the most worthwhile sectors of the businesses’ manufacturing – a technique that, if maintained, positions the businesses to resist an ongoing strike for a lot of months.

“They’re not hitting at the heart of the companies,” mentioned Sam Fiorani, vp of world automobile forecasting at Auto Forecast Solutions. “They’re allowing the companies to still stay in business – and just giving them enough pain to stay at the table.”

The union has but to focus on crops the place the automakers manufacture their most worthwhile automobiles: full-size vans. If they do, it may have a “nuclear effect,” Fiorani mentioned, impacting the businesses’ manufacturing and gross sales to a far higher diploma.

Pick-up vans and enormous SUVs are the “bread and butter” of the Detroit 3, mentioned Michelle Krebs, government analyst at Cox Automotive, including that that is the time of yr – main as much as the winter months – when gross sales go up for these highly-profitable automobiles.

A strike enlargement to the crops that make them would change the businesses’ outlook because the strike continues.

“Week to week, we’re trying to guess what they’re going to do next,” Krebs mentioned.

But the automakers could also be beginning to really feel the ache

The UAW might have opted to carry off on a knockout punch to this point, nevertheless it’s nonetheless delivering sufficient ache to the Big Three.

The strike has already had a “substantial” impression on Ford, in accordance with Kumar Galhotra, who leads Ford’s inner combustion enterprise. Galhotra, in a name with reporters, declined to share precisely how a lot the corporate is shedding every week.

David Whiston, an auto inventory analyst at Morningstar, estimates that if employees have been to go on strike in any respect services, GM may maintain out for six months and Ford for ten months, earlier than reaching the minimal degree of money wanted to run their enterprise.

But since solely a fraction of the businesses’ services are at the moment on strike, the automakers can doubtless final for much longer than that.

UAW President Shawn Fain greets union members as they strike the General Motors Lansing Delta Assembly Plant in Lansing, Mich., on Sept. 29, 2023. So far, the UAW has not but focused probably the most worthwhile elements of the Big Three automakers’ manufacturing.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

cover caption

toggle caption

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

UAW President Shawn Fain greets union members as they strike the General Motors Lansing Delta Assembly Plant in Lansing, Mich., on Sept. 29, 2023. So far, the UAW has not but focused probably the most worthwhile elements of the Big Three automakers’ manufacturing.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Roughly 25,000 auto employees have walked off the job to this point — nonetheless lower than one fifth of the auto employees represented by the UAW.

In addition, greater than 3,000 employees throughout the Big Three automakers have been laid off temporarily because of the strike. On Wednesday, Ford introduced it can lay off an extra 400 employees from two crops.

“We are seeing UAW really sort of taking an approach where they are strategic about how to exert pressure on the company, without damaging suppliers … and without damaging the national economy,” mentioned Karla Walter, senior director of employment coverage on the Center for American Progress.

That mentioned, the UAW has made clear it can proceed to tighten the screws because it seems to be to strain the automakers to achieve agreements sooner somewhat than later – whereas the strike continues to be comparatively measured in its strategy and scale.

The UAW goals to stretch out its fund

The gradual strike expansions provide one other benefit to the UAW: The technique will assist defend the longevity of the UAW’s strike fund, which amounted to greater than $800 million when the strike started.

Workers on strike would see successful to their incomes. The UAW says employees who’re on strike are receiving $500 per week in funds from the strike fund, beginning on their eighth day without work the job.

Workers laid off from different services because of the strike will even obtain $500 per week from the strike fund, the union says, as most of them is not going to be eligible for unemployment advantages.

On common, that may substitute solely about 40% of their misplaced wages.

The UAW strike fund additionally covers some advantages corresponding to medical and prescribed drugs, nevertheless it doesn’t cowl advantages like dental and imaginative and prescient, amongst others, in accordance with the union.

As the weeks proceed, placing employees will inevitably really feel increasingly more of the pinch. But Kyle Bendert, who has been on strike for practically three weeks on the Ford meeting plant in Wayne, Michigan, mentioned taking a brief pay minimize is value it if employees ultimately “get the contracts we deserve.”

“It could have some damages to pay for both us and the company,” Bendert mentioned. “But whatever we got to do for us and for future generations of us.”