United Auto Workers strike: Live updates

The UAW’s strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis is unprecedented, as the union has never struck all three companies at the same time. It is uncertain where it goes from here.

Negotiations are expected to resume Saturday, according to a statement from UAW President Sean Fine. He said the union did not participate in talks Friday to organize a rally in downtown Detroit, which will include Sen. Bernie Sanders. He questioned President Joe Biden’s statement that the talks had “broken down.”

“Today we meet with our members. Tomorrow we expect to sit at the negotiating table,” he said.

The three companies had already issued statements calling on the union to return to the negotiating table.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Gene Sperling, a senior Biden adviser who has been monitoring the talks for the administration, went to Detroit on Friday in hopes they could help the two sides reach an agreement, Biden said in brief remarks Friday morning. He took a very pro-union stance in those comments, saying, “Auto companies have seen record profits, including in the last few years, because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices of UAW workers. But those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view,” With these workers.”

He said automakers must “go further” in their offers to the union.

The strike is unusual, as the union will not allow all 145,000 members at the three companies to walk out at once and halt all operations, as would normally happen. Instead, it chose a large assembly plant for each company, in Toledo, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and Wentzville, Missouri, where the strike will be held. These plants employ 12,700 UAW members, or less than 10% of the membership.

The union insists it is prepared to expand the strike to other factories unless companies improve their offers in subsequent negotiations, when those talks resume.

“We are prepared to continue the strike as long as it takes,” Fine told CNN on a picket line in Warren, Michigan, early Friday morning after the strike began. Asked if more factories would go on strike, he replied: “If they (automakers) don’t take care of our members, they will.”