UAW Releases New Video, “Corporate Greed,” on What’s Really Going on in the Auto Industry

DETROIT – The UAW just released “Corporate Greed,” a new video detailing what’s driving the ongoing strike at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. It features dramatic footage from the union’s rally and march in downtown Detroit on Friday, when thousands of UAW members and supporters gathered on the first day of their historic Stand Up Strike. 

The video can be accessed at this link, and the media is invited to use the footage.

The video digs down into statistics showing how UAW members were left behind as the Big Three funneled their extreme profits to CEOs and wealthy investors. Over the last four years:

• Big Three profits have gone up 65 percent
• CEO pay at the companies has gone up 40 percent
• Big Three spending on stock buybacks is up 1,500 percent
• Average new car prices are up 34 percent
• Inflation is up 20 percent
• Autoworker wages are up just 6 percent

“They pretend that the sky will fall if we get our fair share of the quarter of a trillion dollars the Big Three has made over the past decade,” UAW President Shawn Fain says in the video. “They want to say that our righteous fight for a higher quality of life for the working class would wreck the economy. We’re not going to wreck the economy, we’re going to wreck their economy because it only works for the billionaire class.”

Ford, General Motors and Stellantis all took more than a month to respond to the UAW’s Members’ Demands and failed to put fair contract offers on the table. When the car companies’ contracts expired on Sept. 14, the UAW launched a “Stand Up Strike” and for the first time ever struck all of the Big Three at once.

The Stand Up Strike is a new approach to striking. Instead of striking all plants all at once, select locals have been called on to “Stand Up” and walk out on strike. If the automakers fail to offer fair contracts going forward, more locals will be called on to Stand Up and join the strike.

The first three plants to go out on strike are: GM Wentzville Assembly, Local 2250 in Region 4; Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex, Local 12 in Region 2B; and Ford Michigan Assembly Plant – Final Assembly and Paint only, Local 900 in Region 1A.

A recent Gallup poll found that 75 percent of Americans back UAW members in their negotiations with the Big Three. Just 19 percent side with the companies.

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