When the workers leave a factory town, a certain kind of silence descends. Machines become chilly. Parking lots are vacant. It abruptly vanishes, and its absence is louder than anything. Locals had stopped hearing the hum years ago because it had become background noise, similar to breathing. In the fall of 2023, that silence swept through a number of American cities and conveyed a message that corporate boardrooms had not heard in a very long time.
The United Auto Workers did more than simply go on strike. They went on strike in a different way. UAW President Shawn Fain opted for a strategy more akin to guerilla warfare in place of the conventional approach of picking one company, grinding it out, and using the deal as a template for the next. One by one, strategic plants that were chosen without much notice shut down. All three of Detroit’s titans—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—were simultaneously under pressure.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Organization Name | United Auto Workers (UAW) |
| Full Name | International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America |
| Founded | 1935 |
| President | Shawn Fain (elected 2023) |
| Headquarters | Detroit, Michigan, USA |
| Membership | Approximately 400,000 active members |
| Workers Covered (Big Three Strike) | ~150,000 hourly workers |
| Strike Duration | Approximately six weeks (Fall 2023) |
| Companies Involved | General Motors, Ford, Stellantis |
| Contract Ratification | 64% voted in favor across all three automakers |
| Wage Increases Won | Minimum 33%, up to 160% for lowest-paid workers |
| Official Website | www.uaw.org |
It’s the kind of tactic that sounds simple when described but requires a level of coordination and nerve that most labor leaders spend careers avoiding. It seemed that Fain, who had just been elected president of the union on a reform platform, had no interest in being cautious.
It was difficult to ignore the results. When the dust settled and UAW members voted to ratify their new contracts — 64 percent in favor across all three automakers — the agreements locked in wage increases of at least 33 percent over the life of the deals, with some of the lowest-paid workers seeing raises of over 160 percent.
Following the 2011 concessions, the progression to top pay, which had been extended to eight years, was reinstated to three. As soon as ratification was confirmed, tens of thousands of members received instant raises of more than forty percent.
A $1.25 billion increase in benefits was given to current retirees, who had not received an annual bonus in 15 years. This is more than the union had won for retirees over the course of the previous four contracts put together.
You get the impression that employees were taking in more than just a pay increase when you stand outside those ratification meetings. The rank and file have a sense that something fundamental has changed, which is difficult to measure but impossible to ignore. A certain kind of fatigue had been built up over years of witnessing factories close, wages stagnate, and temporary work turn into a permanent situation. The UAW called it the Stand Up Strike, and it offered something more valuable than cash. It provided the feeling of victory.
In retrospect, one campaign moment—a sitting US president standing on a picket line while sporting a red UAW shirt—still seems nearly unbelievable. Although symbolism obviously mattered, President Biden’s appearance was more than symbolic. It was a reflection of the White House’s assessment that labor’s comeback was a political reality that should be publicly welcomed rather than discreetly handled.
Biden walking that line in person was a completely different kind of signal, even though the administration had already established a pattern of trusting collective bargaining and sending senior officials as facilitators. That picture may be remembered by historians as the point at which the post-pandemic labor movement received the strongest political recognition.
Stellantis committed to a $3.2 billion battery plant investment that would create over a thousand union jobs and agreed to reopen its assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, which it had closed earlier in 2023. When negotiations started, the company was expected to lose more than 5,000 hourly American jobs. More than 5,000 are now expected to be added. Even taking into consideration the political pressure that accompanied it, that reversal is astounding. In corporate planning meetings, figures like those are difficult to reverse.
Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, was remarkably open about the new situation. He admitted that the labor agreement increased costs significantly and that Ford would need to put in a lot of effort to increase productivity and efficiency.
Such an open admission, which is almost uncommon in formal executive communications, implies that businesses were aware of the extent of the compromise they had made. They still gave it, which is indicative of the pressure Fain’s strategy created.
The UAW is not yet complete. In his statement after ratification, Fain made this clear, calling the strike “just the beginning” and pointing to organizing efforts at non-union automakers, many of which have quietly increased worker pay in recent months despite executives denying any connection to the UAW’s campaign.
It is worthwhile to consider the veracity of those denials. When profits are under pressure, companies seldom raise wages on their own initiative.
In the contemporary American economy, labor unions’ return to real influence—rather than merely symbolic significance—was supposed to be a challenging narrative. Southern states’ right-to-work laws have historically made organizing at foreign-owned plants operating there a tedious and frequently pointless endeavor.
Prior UAW initiatives in that area were unsuccessful. It’s still unclear whether the Big Three contracts will result in organizing victories elsewhere, and Fain’s pledge to end the union’s stagnation was a key component of his presidential campaign. However, momentum has the power to alter what is conceivable. Watching what happens next is worthwhile.
