Bucks County autoworkers join thousands of UAW workers on strike

A General Motors parts distribution center in Langhorne joined the United Auto Workers’ strike at noon Friday.

The Bucks County facility is one of 38 GM and Stellantis locations across 20 states that UAW added to the strike on Friday. The added locations, which are all focused on parts distribution, bring another 5,600 workers to the picket line.

Workers at these striking facilities send car parts to dealerships, which they use when customers bring in their vehicles for repairs.

“If you have an accident with a vehicle and you need a new hood, they would come from the parts distribution center,” explained Raymond Jensen, assistant director of UAW’s Region 9, which includes the Philadelphia area.

While experts have said the UAW strikes wouldn’t immediately impact new car sales, UAW expects work stoppages at these distribution centers will have a more immediate effect, he said.

“The dealerships are going to feel it. It’s very strategic,” Jensen said. “It will gain us more support from the public.”

GM said in a statement on Friday that the strike expansion was “unnecessary” and that “UAW leadership is manipulating the bargaining process for their own personal agendas.”

“We have contingency plans for various scenarios and are prepared to do what is best for our business and customers,” GM’s statement said. “We are evaluating if and when to enact those plans.”

UAW President Shawn Fain announced the strike’s expansion on Friday morning, saying the two automakers had not made substantial progress in bargaining with the union since targeted work stoppages began last Friday.

The Langhorne workers are represented by UAW Local 2177, which has 83 members. Their base pay is $16.67 per hour and their highest-paid members, who were hired before 2007, make $31.78 per hour, according to the local.

Langhorne employees usually work 40 or more hours per week, and they’re on their feet for most of each eight-hour shift, said Local 2177 acting president Charmian Leslie-Hughes. She normally logs about eight miles worth of steps each workday on the second shift.

“We make a steady amount of money every night for GM,” she said.

The Langhorne UAW members also went on strike in 2019. The work stoppage lasted for 40 days, ending with a UAW national vote in favor of a new contract for GM’s nearly 50,000 union employees, but the majority of Local 2177 voted against the contract.

“I can tell you this — we are going to fight for everything we didn’t get the last time, and more. We’re not asking for anything crazy,” said Leslie-Hughes, who started her job in 2022. “This time it’s not just GM. We’re also talking Stellantis, we’re also talking Ford. It’s across the board.”

Coincidentally, UAW members from a different Pennsylvania local are currently on strike at a Dometic manufacturing facility in Royersford. Their members held a rally on Friday, 11 days into their work stoppage.

Before Friday, 13,000 workers were already on strike at three auto manufacturing plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri — one Ford, one Stellantis, and one GM.

While the strike at Ford’s Michigan assembly plant will continue, Fain said, Ford and UAW “did make substantial progress in bargaining over the last week,” so the expanded strike locations did not include any additional Ford facilities.

“We’re not there yet, but I want you to see the direction that Ford is going, and what we think that means for our contract fight,” Fain said. “At GM and Stellantis, it’s a different story.”

Ford said in a statement on Friday that the company “is working diligently with the UAW to reach a deal that rewards our workforce and enables Ford to invest in a vibrant and growing future.”

“Although we are making progress in some areas, we still have significant gaps to close on the key economic issues,” Ford said. “In the end, the issues are interconnected and must work within an overall agreement that supports our mutual success.”

Stellantis, in a statement Friday, questioned UAW’s interest in reaching an agreement soon and said the company made “a very competitive offer” Thursday, including 21.4% raises for full-time employees over the course of the contract.

“They seem more concerned about pursuing their own political agendas than negotiating in the best interests of our employees and the sustainability of our U.S. operations given the market’s fierce competition,” Stellantis said.

The UAW’s contract with the automakers expired at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, and workers walked out of a Ford assembly plant near Detroit; a GM factory in Wentzville, Mo.; and a Jeep plant run by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio.

Fain said earlier this week that he would call on workers at more plants to strike unless there was significant progress in contract negotiations.

President Joe Biden said Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he will visit Michigan on Tuesday “to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create.”

The companies have laid off thousands of workers, saying some factories are running short on parts because of the strike.

Still, the impact is not yet being felt on car lots around the country — it will probably take a few weeks before the strike causes a significant shortage of new vehicles, according to analysts. Prices could rise even sooner, however, if the prospect of a prolonged strike triggers panic buying.

The union is seeking pay raises of 36% over four years, an end to lower pay scales for new workers, and most boldly, a 32-hour workweek for 40 hours of pay. The car companies say they can’t afford the union’s demands despite huge profits because they need to invest in the transformation to electric vehicles.

The Detroit News reported Thursday that a spokesperson for Fain wrote on a private group chat on X, formerly Twitter, that union negotiators aimed to inflict “recurring reputations damage and operational chaos” on the carmakers, and “if we can keep them wounded for months they don’t know what to do.”

Ford and GM seized on the messages as a sign of bad faith by the UAW.

“It’s now clear that the UAW leadership has always intended to cause monthslong disruption, regardless of the harm it causes to its members and their communities,” GM said in a statement.

Ford spokesperson Mark Truby called the messages “disappointing, to say the least, given what is at stake for our employees, the companies, and this region.”

The UAW spokesperson, Jonah Furman, did not confirm writing the messages, which were linked to the same picture as his X account, and called them “private messages” that “you shouldn’t have,” the newspaper reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.