UAW Pickets Begin At Some GM Plants After Strike Deadline Passes
DETROIT, MI.(AP) – Workers have begun picketing outside several General Motors plants after the United Auto Workers union’s strike deadline passed.
The union’s national leadership hasn’t publicly announced whether a strike has begun. But workers have walked off their jobs at the GM sport-utility vehicle assembly plant in Arlington. UAW Local 276 represents 2,800 workers at the plant and 2,700 retirees.
The UAW had extended its contract for nine days after it expired on September 14th. But the negotiations became bogged down yesterday. The stumbling block is apparently the union’s quest to protect jobs by getting the company to guarantee that new vehicles would be built in U.S. factories.
The UAW hasn’t called a nationwide strike during contract negotiations since 1976, when Ford plants were shut down. There were strikes at two GM plants during contract negotiations in 1996.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
