UAW workers walk off the job in Lansing while supporters come out for a rally in Detroit
Dave Boucher and Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press
Updated 6 min read
Workers walked out of a GM assembly plant in Lansing, got in their cars and began to strike on Friday as part of an expanded effort announced by UAW President Shawn Fain on Friday morning to get automakers to negotiate a new contract.
The expansion added GM's Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant and Ford Motor Co.'s Chicago Assembly to the list of strike targets, for a total of 7,000 more workers. A group of striking workers also gathered at UAW's Solidarity House for a rally in Detroit on Friday.
Standing in the bed of a Ford F-150, UAW President Shawn Fain speaks to the crowd of strikers at the parking lot of the UAW Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, during a rally.
As striking efforts expanded, workers said they continue to support the strategy the UAW, led by Fain, is taking in demanding strong contracts from the Detroit Three automakers.
At GM Lansing Delta, workers unite over tiered wages
Cars and trucks streamed out of GM Lansing Delta Township Assembly parking lots at noon as striking was set to begin. Private security vehicles circled the large but relatively secluded plant, asking news media and others who parked on-site to move.
Closer to the plant, there were few visible signs of the strike. A nearly mile-long private road winds along the large plant, where both Lansing Delta Township plant employees and Lansing Regional Stamping employees work — only the Delta Lansing Township employees are on strike. The plant is about 8 miles southwest of downtown Lansing
UAW Local 602 member Scotty Jones talks with his wife, Shereasa, before the two joined fellow GM Lansing Delta Assembly plant workers on the picket line, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, near Millett Highway and Creyts Road in Delta Township.
About 40 picketers gathered 2 miles from GM's Lansing Delta Township factory, outside Tony M's Restaurant and Lounge. The lounge is also only a few miles from where Rian Cowsert lives with his wife and child.
For the last 11 years, Cowsert worked as a team member in the automated ground vehicles unit at the GM plant. Cowsert and his family live comfortably; he celebrated his 34th birthday on Thursday. But on Friday he was on strike, chiefly to support ending tiered pay, increase wages and improve benefits.
So far he said he has supported UAW leadership and their strategy as the nationwide, targeted strike finishes a second week. But he was also a bit surprised that the Delta Township plant was chosen Friday.
GM Lansing Delta Township UAW Local 602 members picket, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, near Millett Highway and Creyts Road.
"It can be frustrating. There is a strategy, but they don't want to tell us union members because they don't want the Big Three to know also," Cowsert said. "Personally, seeing what I've seen today, I do like the strategy. I believe (the union) is giving them an opportunity to make an agreement."
Union members erected large brown tents at three sites around the plant, one near the north entrance, one near the south entrance and one near Tony M's. While about seven people cheered near the north entrance and three or four picketed by the south, the bulk of the pickets gathered outside Tony M's.
Jennifer Snook, 45, and her husband stood shoulder to shoulder Friday afternoon, waving their blue and white UAW signs at the tractor-trailers and cars that passed by. This is nothing new for the mom and 15-year GM veteran: Friday marked the start of her third strike with the company.
GM Lansing Delta Township UAW members, including Ryan Kosloski, right, picket, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, near Millett Highway and Creyts Road. Koloski's shirt shows the four in his family who also work at GM.
"It brings us all together. We're all fighting the same battle, and it's really, really great solidarity to feel that," Snook said.
Like others on the picket line, she said ending tiered pay is a top priority. But more broadly, she believes this strike is about saving the middle class.
At the Solidarity House in Detroit, workers lament paycheck to paycheck
Malak Jomaa expected more. Her job working on the frame line at Michigan Assembly Plant doesn’t pay what most people probably assume. She’s a new hire and a temp, making $16.67 an hour, said Jomaa, 41, of Dearborn.
“It’s disheartening,” said Jomaa, noting that she has to work a second job as an esthetician. “You’re working at Ford, breaking your back. It’s not right.”
With Malak Jomaa, of Dearborn, left, driving, Amanda Robbins, 38, of Romulus, leans out of a Ford Bronco as a caravan of SUVs heads down Van Dyke and into the entrance of the UAW Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023 for a rally. Both friends work the frame line at the Ford Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne and came to the rally to hear UAW President Shawn Fain speak to the crowd of strikers at the parking lot of the headquarters.
Jomaa, who started her job in August, was in the parking lot of the UAW’s Solidarity House in Detroit on Friday to attend what was billed as a solidarity rally organized by UAW locals. She came as part of a convoy of what looked to be mostly Jeeps and Broncos — with some Chevy logos mixed in — that started farther east on Jefferson.
The crowd listened as UAW President Shawn Fain spoke about ongoing negotiations in the strike. Fain had earlier announced on Facebook Live that the union would expand its strike against Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, but not Stellantis, owner of Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat, because of recent bargaining progress.
During remarks to reporters, Fain addressed what changed from a week ago when Ford was said to be making progress with the union. Fain said, “We went backwards (which) happens in bargaining. ... They led us to believe we were getting there, and we weren’t.”
Stellantis by contrast, “made some changes,” in terms of their proposals and Fain referenced a late night bargaining session Thursday night that lasted until “almost midnight,” he said, declining to go into specifics.
As for the rally, Fain told the crowd, there’s no better place to show up.
UAW President Shawn Fain talks with the media after his speech from the bed of a Ford F-150 to striking workers, many of whom caravanned in Ford Broncos and Jeeps to hear him at the UAW Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.
“You know this place, our Solidarity House. This is our home. It’s hallowed ground,” he said, noting the past presence there of people like Walter Reuther, the legendary UAW leader, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Fain said there’s a war going on in the United States, one that he has characterized as a wealthy elite taking an outsized share while the working class struggles to get by.
That message is one Amanda Robbins, 38, of Romulus, who attended the rally with Jomaa and has worked at Michigan Assembly for 3½ years, can appreciate. She got her job at Michigan Assembly, where she now secures the tow hitch on the Bronco and Ranger, after making ventilators during the pandemic.
“I am one of those people who live paycheck to paycheck,” she said, noting that she's supporting the union’s push for fair pay and a better future.
But the immediate future is scary for Robbins, who has a 3-year-old son and a husband who works at GM. He’s still working, but the prospect that they might both be off work, even with strike pay or unemployment benefits, keeps them "on their toes." She makes T-shirts as a side job.
Ken Smith, center, who works in research at the UAW Solidarity House on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, listens to UAW President Shawn Fain talk to strikers during a rally on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.
D. Price, 59, of Westland, was also in the crowd. She works at Michigan Assembly as an inspector. She’s been there for 23 years.
She said she prays that significant progress will be made in negotiations, but she said she’s hopeful that most of the concessions that the workers gave up in years past, they’ll get back.
“In all honesty, we just want to be treated fairly,” she said.
Contact Dave Boucher: dboucher@freepress.com. Contact Eric Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com.
