Above photo: Archival image from a United Auto Workers publication, circa 1937. UAW.
United Auto Workers continue to fight to reopen shuttered Belvidere assembly plant.
Welcoming resignation of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.
On December 1, Portuguese business executive Carlos Tavares abruptly resigned as CEO of one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world. On December 2, the United Auto Workers (UAW), one of the largest unions in the country, issued a statement welcoming the resignation, as well as announcing that Stellantis finalizing an employee leasing agreement with workers in Kokomo, Indiana, long overdue after Tavares’ delays.
In 2023, autoworkers across the United States went on a historic strike against the three largest automakers in the United States: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Workers, organized by the UAW, won historic victories in their contract with the three companies, including ensuring that their wages will rise to over USD 40 per hour.
Through the agreement secured with Stellantis, workers secured the reopening of the idled Belvidere plant in Illinois, the shuttering of which had devastated that working class. The agreement also included an employee leasing agreement at Stellantis’ joint venture battery plant with Samsung SDI in Kokomo, Indiana, which is only now being finalized following Tavares’ resignation.
“Tavares’ resignation is a major step in the right direction for a company that has been mismanaged and a workforce that has been mistreated for too long,” the UAW stated. “For weeks, thousands of UAW members at Stellantis have been calling for the company to fire Tavares due to his reckless mismanagement of the company. We are pleased to see the company responding to pressure and correcting course.”
1,200 workers were displaced as a result of Belvidere’s closure, scattering workers all over the country. Now, UAW members are making preparations to potentially strike again, as they claim that Stellantis has broken its promises to workers. According to the UAW, the multi-billion dollar company promised to launch the Belvidere Mega Hub in 2024, the Belvidere Stamping operation in 2025, and the Belvidere midsize truck production in 2027. Instead, the company has informed the union that it has pushed back these launches beyond the agreed upon dates.
“They claim to be delaying the assembly plant just by a year, but it is no coincidence that they want to push the date to beyond the life of this contract,” Shawn Fain said during a September 17 livestream broadcast. “But pushing the product outside the date of the agreement means we have no agreement. It means that Stellantis will make us renegotiate product for Belvidere when we come back to the bargaining table in 2028.”
For the UAW, these are unacceptable terms. The union has filed a series of grievances against Stellantis, and if those grievances are unresolved, workers will hold a strike authorization vote.
“Either we allow an out-of-control CEO and his billionaire backers who have enjoyed years of record profits to close plant after plant and continue destroying our country,” Fain announced. “Or we stand up.”
Last year in October, Peoples Dispatch went to the picket line outside a Stellantis Parts Distribution Center in Tappan, New York, where UAW Local 3039 workers were on strike, actively fighting for the historic contract that would come to fruition a few weeks later. Peoples Dispatch spoke to a worker, Mimi, who had recently been relocated to the Tappan PDC from the shuttered Belvidere Plant. The company had provided her with inadequate relocation money, and so she lived part time in hotels, and part time in her car, as she could not afford to find decent housing. She also had been suffering from the toll that years of repetitive work on the assembly line had taken on her body, having gone through multiple surgeries.
“It’s hard trying to find housing. It’s hard trying to learn the area in such a short period of time. To be honest with you, I sleep in my car half the time because the hotels are so expensive,” she said. “I had to take a pay cut to come here.”
Mimi had been employed at Chrysler since May 16, 2011, and is originally from Chicago. She worked in the Belvidere area for 12 years. As a result of repetitive work on the assembly line, her “body has been broken down,” in her own words.
“I’ve had to have a knee replaced. I’ve had four foot surgeries,” she said. “For my four foot surgeries, my toes were crossing up like this. They had to break my bones in order to straighten my toes out.”
These same injuries plague auto workers across the board, being “inherent” to the auto industry, according to Thomas Armstrong, a professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, quoted in an article written by Sarah Lazare and published in The Nation. But according to a report from last year published by Keith Brower Brown in Labor Notes last year, workers say that harsh assembly line speedups, implemented by companies to increase profits, have only worsened the rate of injury.
“I have friends that are there right now, they have carpal tunnel so bad. They’re constantly going to the doctor. And they say that the treatments that they get for this carpal tunnel syndrome or whatever doesn’t even work for them. Their bodies are broken. People have dislocated shoulders and back problems. From repetitive work,” Mimi described.
“It’s been one thing after another with them. It makes me mad that we have so much that happens with our bodies, and we still we’re making record profits and they shut us down,” Mimi said.
“When you break it down, we’re not even asking for much. It seems like it, but it’s really not. And if they were to pay us all, out of the huge bonuses, the million dollar bonuses that they get over the past ten years, they still would be on top of what they have. They would still have millions. We were just asking for our fair share.”
Peoples Dispatch recently followed up with Mimi, as her union gears up for another potential strike. While Mimi luckily found a place to live due to the help of her union steward, she described those winter months living out of hotel parking lots as some of the hardest of her life. And recently, the problems with her knee flared back up, causing her to be out of the plant temporarily. She currently gets by on disability pay.
“You get that New York disability pay, which is very little combined with the sickness and accident pay. It’s not even a third of what I usually make at my job. So it’s been very hard,” Mimi told Peoples Dispatch.
“We were making record profits,” Mimi said of her work for Stellantis, a company that she gave 13 years of her life to. “Why is it that we are the lowest on the totem pole? They don’t honor us as valuable employees. We’re the ones making that money, while [Stellantis CEO] Carlos Tavares is lining in his pockets with big bonuses. Giving himself millions upon millions of dollars of a raise for himself.”
Read the full interview, conducted on the picket line, below:
Peoples Dispatch: When did you transfer from Belvidere?
Mimi: I transferred to the New York Mopar PDC plant on August 21 of [2023]. I had to take a pay cut to come here. I thought, wow, that’s pretty unreasonable considering New York is one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive state in the country.
I’m originally from Chicago, Illinois. I worked in the Belvidere area for 12 years. I only got a letter letting me know of a relocation at the end of June.
PD: What was the effect of the plant closure on you?
M: They lost a lot of business [in the community] once the plant closed. It was a very large distribution plant.
It was hurtful for me because, not having any family out here, no friends out here, is really hard for me. I was scared. Because I’ve never done something like this before.
It’s hard trying to find housing. It’s hard trying to learn the area in such a short period of time. To be honest with you, I sleep in my car half the time because the hotels are so expensive.
And the money, the relocation money that they were giving me, I’m using it now to live on. Because it’s hard to get a place. The relocation money wasn’t much in the first place. To get a place out here, you have to pay first and last month’s rent plus you have to pay a realtor fee. I can’t get anyone to rent, and if I do something that is just outrageously in a really awful area or is just outrageously expensive.
What I do is I stay in a hotel, for the other days that I’m not staying in a hotel where it’s really cheap then, yeah we sleep in the car.
That’s why I just had my granddaughter come in, pick up some water.
This is what I’m doing. Can you believe it? And they have the nerve to complain because we just asked them for a little bit?
When you break it down, we’re not even asking for much. It seems like it, but it’s really not. And if they were to pay us all, out of the huge bonuses, the million dollar bonuses that they get over the past ten years, they still would be on top of what they have.
They would still have millions. We were just asking for our fair share.
My body has been broken down. I’ve been with Chrysler since May 16, 2011. Always been healthy, very active. Although I’m older, I’ve always been like that, very energetic. I’ve had to have a knee replaced. I’ve had four foot surgeries. I have friends that are there right now, they have carpal tunnel so bad. They’re constantly going to the doctor. And they say that the treatments that they get for this carpal tunnel syndrome or whatever doesn’t even work for them. Their bodies are broken. People have dislocated shoulders and back problems. From repetitive work. For my four foot surgeries, my toes were crossing up like this. They had to break my bones in order to straighten my toes out.
I used to do this job on the assembly line in the chassis department where I had to put belly pans. I’m standing underneath cars as they pass overhead and I had to put belly hands on skid plates. Skid plates are heavy. Belly pans not so much, but skid plates are heavy. But that was my job, repetitive.
They used to send over these bins that the skid plates and belly pans used to come in. But the bins that they used to send over were so old, I opened one to fold it down one time and it came off of my hand, popped my kneecap. I didn’t even know it was bothering me at first, because it actually popped both. But this is the one that it damaged the most.
It’s been one thing after another with them. It makes me mad that we have so much that happens with our bodies, and we still we’re making record profits and they shut us down.
PD: What was it like going on strike in this plant?
M: What happened was we knew that a strike was looming. However, when the day came for us to strike, when they told us, no, they’re not gonna do us. Everyone was like, woo, okay. Some people were like, well, I was ready for the strike.
Well, that whole week, we were in the plant and then we got another message. We had a meeting every time before we started our shift. I’m on the 3:30 pm to midnight shift.
We had a meeting with the supervisors. And after the meeting the union came and talked to us. They told us that if you guys have anything in your lockers that you want to keep or is very valuable to you, you get it out of your locker now. Because we may strike. He said it’s getting bad. And the very next day I was supposed to be in for work at 3:30 p.m. I was called at 10 a.m. They had just called Jeffrey [UAW Local 3039 President Jeffrey Purcell] to let him know to walk out. So they all walked out. The morning people walked out.
My union president, Jeff, he has a video of that. It was awesome.
PD: What was management’s reaction when they saw you all walking out?
M: Oh, my goodness. We saw them. Their faces were like [shocked], because they knew they were going to have to get on that line.
They knew they were going to have to get in there and get some of that work done. The work that we do every single day.
PD: So in there right now, it’s the supervisors working?
M: Yes.
PD: Wow, that must feel good.
M: I know, everybody laughs about that.