Workers at the Nexteer Automotive plant in Saginaw, Michigan will begin voting Thurday morning on a four-and-a-half year labor agreement after overwhelmingly rejecting two United Auto Workers-backed contracts in April and mid-May. Earlier this month workers forced UAW officials to hold a strike vote and then backed a walkout by 86 percent.

The 1,300 workers at the former GM Saginaw Steering Division plant are in an open rebellion against the repeated efforts of the UAW International and UAW Local 699 to ram through a pro-company deal that includes poverty starting wages, raises that fail to keep up with rising living expenses and other concessions.

The following is a statement issued by the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee calling on workers to reject the third tentative agreement (TA) and prepare to strike to win their demands. To contact the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee, fill out the form at the end of the statement.

Brothers and Sisters,

We have rejected two UAW-backed contracts. On April 2, we said no by 96.2 percent. On May 15, we said no again by 73 percent. On May 21-22 we voted by 86 percent to strike. Now they are back with TA #3—dressed up with a signing bonus and front-loaded raises to make a rotten contract look like progress.

It is not progress. It is the same concession regime grinding us down for twenty years. Vote no. This time, we do not wait for permission to act.

What is actually in this contract

The numbers tell the story:

• Production workers top out at $27 an hour in 2030—the same wage workers earned here in 2005 when it was Delphi Saginaw Steering. Adjusted for inflation, that 2005 wage is worth $45.65 today. This contract offers less than 60 cents on the dollar compared to what workers earned at these same workstations a generation ago.
• After an initial pay bump, there are annual increases of 4%, 2%, 2.9% and 2.8%. These do not keep pace with inflation, which is expected to hit 4.8% in Michigan over the next year. This means, workers will be worse off in real terms by 2030 than today.
• The $2,500 bonus, after taxes and dues, is roughly $1,500 in hand—about 25 cents per hour over five years of work.
• New hires at $19.50 now face a 48-month progression to production rate—double the current 24 months. Post-2021 hires pay health insurance premiums rising three percent every year.
• The points threshold for automatic discharge was cut from 18 to 12. Miss five consecutive days with a serious illness and you are already at 7 points—more than halfway to termination.
• Cycle-time surveillance is untouched. Management monitors output in real time, every shift, with no notification requirement. Nothing in TA #3 restricts it.

The bureaucracy’s record speaks for itself

Shawn Fain, Steve Dawes, Jason Tuck and Carl McKee and Local 699 officials have had one goal throughout: prevent a strike. Not because we are weak, but because they know how strong we are. If we walk out, we could bring large sections of the auto industry to a grinding halt.

With utter contempt for our rights, Local 699 officials posted a 253-page contract and scheduled a ratification vote less than 48 hours before we are supposed to vote. That ensures that we have no time to read, study or discuss an agreement that will govern our work lives until December 20, 2030. That is not a ratification process. That is putting a gun to our heads.

To avoid confrontations with workers who might ask hard questions, UAW officials allowed management into the rollout meetings, letting HR managers stand alongside union reps and pitch the deal as a “win-win” agreement. Since when does the company get to sell us our own contract? The answer is when the union bureaucrats and the company are working toward the same outcome.

To younger workers being told this contract delivers for them: look at what is missing. There is nothing, not a single enforceable provision, to protect you from layoffs in the coming months. The pay bump they are touting is real only if you still have a job to collect it. Under conditions where automation is expanding and the industry is cutting costs at every level, a wage increase without job security is a promise written on water.

The only ones who gain from this contract are the corporate executives and their union stooges. The agreement includes several new labor-management programs—the LMRC, the Savings Distribution Program, the NPS Leaders Programs. These are not protections for workers. They are guaranteed jobs and more time off for union officials enforcing management’s productivity and cost-cutting dictates. They represent the same career ladder into the UAW International apparatus that Tuck followed. The record stands: three sellout deals, contract extensions without a vote, lies that strikes are “illegal” and threats of job loss and plant closures if we reject this blackmail.

“Best we can get?” We already proved that a lie

Every union official rolling through your department this week was delivering the same line: this is the best we can get. Accept it or face something worse. Don’t listen to it. It may be true we won’t get anything more from union bureaucrats whose bread is buttered by corporations. But we can win much more if we use our collective strength. Whatever improvements were made over the three deals were achieved because we shot down the TAs, which they said were the best we could get. Imagine what we could win if we walked out and halted their production and profits.

What we can win will not be decided in a conference room by union bureaucrats. It will be decided by what we are willing to fight for on the shop floor. Earlier generations did not win the 40-hour week or overtime pay by being patient. They won by shutting production down—over the objections of officials who said, in their own time, it was the best they could get.

On arbitration: the UAW has no right to impose one. Federal law guarantees the right to strike. The bureaucracy can threaten to withhold strike authorization and even strike pay, but Shawn Fain, earning $276,000 a year, telling 1,300 workers they cannot walk out would provoke an uproar among UAW members everywhere. The Strike and Defense Fund holds nearly $1 billion—it belongs to the rank and file. We demand $1,000 per week in strike pay, and we will bring that demand to the UAW convention on June 15–18.

We are not alone

We are the leading edge of a wave of opposition from long under-paid and abused parts workers:

• American Axle, Three Rivers — 98% strike authorization, contract expiring May 31. In 2008, Dawes helped isolate their 87-day strike and slash wages from $29 to $14.50. Their top rate today is $22.
• Dana — 4,000 workers in four states are voting overwhelmingly for strike action and their contract is expired now.
• Bridgewater Interiors — 2,200 workers in Lansing and metro Detroit are angry over their own sellout contracts.
• Magna Seating — 900 workers in Highland Park, Michigan, contract expiring in July.

If we exercise our fundamental right to withhold our labor our strike would encourage a unified auto parts industry walkout—and the restoration of the parity wages that once existed when parts workers earned 96 cents for every dollar earned by Big Three assembly workers. Our brothers and sisters at GM, Ford and Stellantis were sold out too. Fain’s 2023 “Stand Up” strike kept most plants working while a handful were called out for show. The “historic” contracts signed by Fain and UAW Vice President Richard Boyer (who now oversees parts negotiations) were followed by thousands of mass layoffs, mandatory overtime and the loss of three Stellantis and Ford workers who were crushed to death in the plants. Big Three workers are ready to back a real fight.

Unity is our weapon

Young and old. Production and skilled trades. New hires and pre- and post-2006. The company and the UAW bureaucracy have spent years using every division they could manufacture to keep us weak. It is time to put all of that aside. We all work in the same plant, sacrificing our bodies and family time, and struggling to make ends meet. We showed them twice that we will not accept being blackmailed—and we will do it again. This time, a no vote has to be followed by a strike without delay.

As one sister said: we have not only Nexteer but GM and the entire auto industry by the throat. We have proved it at the ballot box. Now we prove it on the picket line.

Vote no on TA #3. Demand an immediate membership meeting to set a strike date. Join the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee.

The fight is ours. The time is now.

To join or contact the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee, fill out the form below.