After reaching a tentative agreement with Stellantis and Ford last week, the United Auto Workers on Saturday widened its strike against the final holdout among the Big Three, General Motors, the Associated Press reported.
Union workers staged a walkout at the Spring Hill, Tennessee GM plant Saturday evening just hours after reaching the tentative deal with Stellantis, with 4,000 union workers joining the 14,000 GM workers already striking at factories in Michigan, Texas, and Missouri.
The walkout at Spring Hill will add substantial pressure on General Motors as the plant makes the engines for vehicles assembled in nine GM plants in the US and Mexico, including engines for Sierra and Silverado pickup trucks. The vehicles assembled at the Spring Hill plant include Cadillac crossover SUVs, GMC Arcadia, and the EV Cadillac Lyriq.
The tentative agreement with Stellantis mirrors the deal the UAW reached with Ford last week, and saves jobs at multiple plants, according to the union.
The presidents of the Ford union locals unanimously voted to endorse the tentative deal after the details of the contract were explained by UAW President Shawn Fain in Detroit on Sunday, according to a UAW post on X.
In a live stream to UAW members on Sunday, Fain, along with UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, said the deal with Ford represents a “historical inflection point” that would revive union power in the US.
The new contract with Ford includes more general wage increases over the next four and a half years than in the previous 22 years combined, according to Browning.
The deals with Ford and Stellantis would run through April 30, 2028, and include a 25 percent general wage increase for top assembly plant workers, 11 percent of which comes once the deal is ratified.
The contract with Ford would also revive the cost-of-living adjustments the UAW agreed to suspend in 2009 during the Great Recession. It also ends what Fain described as “the abuse of temporary workers,” allowing them to become permanent after nine months while also getting profit-sharing checks.
