PARMA, Ohio — The UAW hit another major plant of one of the big three automakers as workers were called to strike at one of General Motors' most profitable factories.
The stand-up strike was called at an SUV plant in Arlington, Texas. Monday, workers at the Stellantis pickup truck plant near Detroit joined the picket line. The Texas strike brings the total number of striking UAW members to 46,000.
General Motors said: "We are disappointed by the escalation of this unnecessary and irresponsible strike. It is harming our team members who are sacrificing their livelihoods and having negative ripple effects on our dealers, suppliers, and the communities that rely on us."
The strike is having a ripple effect in Northeast Ohio. Fewer trucks coming off the assembly line in Texas and Michigan means fewer folks needed to make truck parts.
One hundred thirty-nine employees at the GM Parma Metal Stamping plant won't be headed to work Wednesday.
"Some trades got it, some production got it, our press room was affected quite a bit, second and third shift, our metal assembly area, so it was across the whole plant," said Dan Schwartz, President Local 1005, General Motors Parma.
Schwartz continued, "I was in the plant this morning walking around and just spending time with everybody before this came out, and they were just like, hey, we got to do what we got to do. It's our time."
The layoff is temporary. The 139 employees will return to their jobs in Parma when the strike is over. Schwartz said the UAW announced it would pay the laid-off workers $500 a week in strike pay.
"Everybody is still fired up and ready to go. We've done this before, and we're willing to go ahead and dig in as far as we have to," said Schwartz.
In late September, the plantlaid off 130 employees in response to the strike.
Economists are taking a look at potential impacts on the labor market.
"We still have very low levels of unemployment. We see that there just aren't a ton of workers out there looking for jobs that can't find them, which empowers the workers a little bit to be able to say perhaps this is our time to ask for a little bit more than we think we've earned or deserve," said Jonathan Ernest, economics professor, Case Western Reserve University.
More than five weeks into the strike, Ernest predicts an even more challenging experience in finding affordable cars, "For the consumer purchasing those vehicles, it's sort of a double whammy in terms of having higher prices for vehicles for all of these reasons and high interest rates so if you're financing that vehicle it's going to be a pretty expensive thing to do, and it's going to keep a lot of people out of that market."
