In his speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the international president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Shawn Fain, began by wishing a nice evening to “the people who make this world go round: the working class.” The union supports Kamala Harris, and on the convention stage, wearing a T-shirt that read “Trump is a strikebreaker,” Fain described Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance as “two lapdogs for the billionaire class who only serve themselves.”
It’s remarkable rhetoric to hear in a prime-time speech at the DNC, and it drew thunderous applause from Chicago’s convention center. But Fain rarely misses the opportunity presented by a high-profile platform to not only advance the union’s vision — fighting for the entire working class — but also to advance organizing goals within the union. Monday night was no exception.
After outlining Trump’s disgraceful record on workers’ rights, which included not only breaking picket lines but also failing to help workers shut down GM’s Lordstown, Ohio, plant in 2019 or the UAW labor inspector who went on a 40-day strike at GM that same year (unlike Harris, who participated in GM’s picket line), he turned to an issue of increasing concern to UAW members.
“Corporate greed is alive and well in the auto industry,” Fain said. The union’s historic strike at the Big Three automakers last fall produced major victories, he said; at Stellantis, those victories included the right to strike on product and capital investment commitments and a commitment to reopen the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Belvidere, Illinois. The plant’s indefinite shutdown in March 2023 scattered UAW members to other sites across the country. While Stellantis said the closure was for financial reasons, many workers viewed it as an unnecessary move designed to intimidate the UAW. Reversing the closure was a priority for the union.
“Through the power of our strike, we saved Belvidere,” said UAW Vice President Rich Boyer when the promise to reopen the plant was won last fall. “Eight months ago, Stellantis shut down the Belvidere assembly plant and put 1200 of our members on the street. Through the power of our strike, we are bringing back those jobs and more. Stellantis is reopening the plant, and the company will also create over a thousand jobs at a new battery plant in Belvidere.”
It is incredibly rare in the United States for a union to win the right to strike against a company’s investment decisions or the reopening of a shuttered plant. For decades, faced with the waning power of workers, corporate executives have been able to use company money and resources as they wish, ignoring the worker communities that have been left behind and answerable only to shareholders. The UAW’s Stellantis contract is a major step forward for workers and forces executives to consider the possibility of worker strikes as they plan for the future.
Fain claimed on the DNC stage that the company had not kept its end of the bargain. “One year later, a company wants to back out of the commitments in our contract,” he said Monday. “Let me be clear: Stellantis must keep the promises it made to America in our collective bargaining agreement, and the UAW will take whatever action necessary at Stellantis or any other company to stand up and hold American business accountable.”
The union leader’s decision to focus on the Stellantis labor dispute is no accident: On the day of Fain’s speech, UAW Stellantis chapters across the country, representing tens of thousands of workers, filed a grievance against the company for breach of contract and began defending the remarkable progress they had recently won. In doing so, they are setting the stage for a nationwide grievance strike against the owner of Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep and Ram if the company’s intransigence continues. Once the contract’s grievance process has been exhausted, the union can authorize a strike. According to the Detroit NewsThe union is preparing for a strike as early as October this year.
Stellantis’ turnaround does not only affect former Belvidere workers. The company’s actions call into question all other investment commitments and reduce job relocation opportunities for Stellantis workers laid off elsewhere.
The UAW complaint states that Stellantis informed the union that “the company will not open the Belvidere Consolidated Mopar Mega Hub in 2024, will not begin stamping operations for the Belvidere Mega Hub in 2025, and will not begin production of a midsize truck in Belvidere in 2027.”
“The company’s failure to plan, fund and launch these programs is a violation of the U.S. Investment Letter in the P&M and OC&E collective bargaining agreements,” the complaint continues. “During the 2023 national negotiations, the parties agreed to the Belvidere Investment Plan to address the job security concerns affecting bargaining unit members across the system. The company’s failure to meet its obligations in the U.S. Investment Letter is a serious concern for all bargaining unit members.”
The union is demanding that Stellantis “reverse its decision to postpone the above-mentioned launches and immediately plan and finance the investments in Belvidere in order to meet the agreed schedule” for the commissioning of the three plants.
In response, Stellantis said in a statement this week that it was not violating the contract. It argued that the contract’s language “expressly allows the company to change product investments and employment levels. Therefore,” the company continued, “the union cannot legally strike for a violation of this letter at this time.”
This morning, Fain joined UAW Region 4 Director Brandon Campbell and Local 1268 President Matt Frantzen at a rally in Belvidere to further increase pressure on the company.
“This is not just a local fight or a union fight,” Campbell said in a statement before the rally. “This is a fight for the dignity of work in America. Unionized or not, from Belvidere or not.”
“I find it pathetic irony that Stellantis is now, for the first time, citing ‘market conditions’ as a reason for trying to break their promises to Belvidere and to autoworkers across America,” Fain added. “It’s always ‘market conditions’ when they have to rip off an autoworker or close a plant. It’s never ‘market conditions’ when they want to raise CEO pay by 56 percent. (Stellantis CEO) Carlos Tavares is telling American autoworkers, ‘Market conditions for you, but not for me.'”
The union is moving fast. As Fain noted at today’s rally, a Stellantis worker who had been transferred from Belvidere was killed on the job in Toledo yesterday, in what the union leader called “the final humiliation after being driven from his home.” There will be a rally tomorrow, too, this time at Stellantis’ Sterling Heights, Michigan, assembly plant, coinciding with a scheduled visit by Tavares to the plant. The reformed UAW, both its members and its leaders, seem less intimidated by the day; judging by the reception of Fain’s speech at the DNC, the public is still behind them.
