(Wayne) For Ramona Jocys, employed at Ford for 33 years, the strike that began Friday in the United States among the three largest American automobile manufacturers has a capital goal: “Ensuring the survival of our families. »
A member of the powerful UAW union, she came Friday evening to a picket line outside the Ford plant in Wayne, where workers displayed their optimism, red t-shirts on their backs and “UAW on strike” signs. brandished in the air.
Tim Jackson was out repairing a car Thursday evening when he learned that his plant in Michigan, in the northern United States, had been chosen by the UAW as one of three plants nationwide to start the strike.
“Everyone started shouting,” he confides as cars honk as they pass in front of them, to show their solidarity.
For several weeks, the UAW had been sending signals to its nearly 150,000 members to prepare for the strike, the first of the union in its 88 years of existence to simultaneously affect Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis, the “Big 3” of automobile manufacturing in the United States.
The union chose not to announce a general strike, preferring to initially target a few factories.
The first concerned: a GM factory in Missouri, a Stellantis factory in Ohio, and therefore the Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan.
The idea of launching the strike “made me happy, but scared at the same time,” explains Tim Jackson.
For him, the demand for a higher hourly wage is essential to be able to spend more time with his family, instead of working 70-hour weeks.
” Powder trail ”
The strike comes in a context of profound changes for the automobile industry, which is moving towards electric.
Ford, like GM and Stellantis, is investing billions of dollars to build new factories and prepare existing sites for this new era.
And uncertainty reigns among auto workers about what these changes mean for them.
Some 500 km from Wayne, Kentucky, Tameka Colon is disappointed that her Ford pickup factory was not chosen to strike.
But at the end of her 12-hour night shift, she took a bus with 40 other members of her union to a rally in Detroit, alongside UAW President Shawn Fain and the iconic senator from left, Bernie Sanders.
PHOTO REBECCA COOK, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Senator Bernie Sanders at a rally for workers in Detroit on September 15.
“We got off the bus singing,” she says, holding union pamphlets.
“We have energy and it spreads like wildfire”, and “companies must realize this”, welcomes the employee.
While polls indicate strong popular support for the UAW, Sofus Nielsen, a 29-year Ford employee, doesn’t expect the automakers to fold anytime soon.
“They’re going to try to make people feel it and suffer from it,” he said of the strike.
If the moment is one of optimism and cheerful songs, Mr. Nielsen fears a “different atmosphere” in three weeks if the workers are still not back on the production lines.