Major Auto Union That Brought The Whole Industry To A Halt Last Year Threatens To Launch Massive Strike Once Again

The United Auto Workers (UAW) threatened Tuesday night to stage a strike against major automaker Stellantis due to allegations of failing to meet certain contract requirements on plant openings.

UAW President Shawn Fain indicated in a livestream that some local union branches have initiated strike authorization votes in an effort to enforce their contract agreement with Stellantis amid ongoing delays in reopening a production facility in Belvidere, Illinois, which the union claims Stellantis had committed to opening soon as a part of their contract deal reached last year. Stellantis and the UAW arrived at the agreement in October 2023 after a six-week-long strike that also targeted Ford and General Motors and largely brought the industry to a halt.

“Seventeen Stellantis UAW locals covering tens of thousands of members have now filed grievances with the company to enforce our 2023 agreement,” Fain said in a statement. “As of today, two of those grievances have progressed to the third step, while eight others have moved to the second step. We are ready to enforce this contract. And the company knows it.”

The union alleges that the 2023 contract requires that the previously shuttered Belvidere plant be repurposed and brought back online to build midsize trucks and create vehicle parts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The commitments we made during 2023 negotiations span the life of the 4-year, 7 ½-month agreement, so it is not surprising that they haven’t been fully realized in the first year,” Jodi Tinson, a spokeswoman for Stellantis, told the