THREE RIVERS, Mich.—A General Motors car can’t run if its wheels don’t have axles. That fact is staring the giant automaker in the face as almost 1,000 workers at American Axle, GM’s axle supplier, in Three Rivers, Michigan, authorized a strike at the end of May by a 98%-2% tally.
The axle plant workers, members of Auto Workers Local 2093, have many of the same goals the now-militant UAW set when it struck the Detroit 3 auto companies—Ford, GM, and Stellantis, formerly FiatChrysler—in a series of rolling walkouts several years ago, and won.
They include recouping the money workers sacrificed when the auto industry cratered, and GM and Fiat Chrysler went bankrupt due to the Wall Street-caused Great Recession of 2008-2009.
As the price for federal loan guarantees to rescue the two automakers and their suppliers, health care was shuffled off to the UAW, pensions were frozen, a two-tier wage system was imposed, and other benefits were slashed.
At American Axle, workers saw a 50% cut in pay, from $29 an hour to $14.50.
“The membership of UAW Local 2093 and Region 1D have sent a crystal clear message to American Axle,” said UAW Region 1D Director Steve Dawes. “We need a fair contract now, or we’re ready to take the next step,” he added after the May 11 vote results were announced the next day.
“We’ve waited long enough for this company to do the right thing, and we’re ready to do what it takes to win a fair deal at American Axle.”
The American Axle workers want that cut reversed, and more, especially since in the last decade, American Axle has turned an $8.4 billion profit, and workers have shared in none of it, union President Shawn Fain told a kickoff rally on March 29. Talks between the two sides opened on April 20, and the current contract expires at midnight on May 31.
Meanwhile, axle company CEO David Dauch pocketed $11.213 million in 2024, the last year federal figures were available for the firm, the AFL-CIO’s Paywatch, using federal data, reports. Most of it was in cash bonuses for performance and stock options.
Dauch’s compensation was 215 times the median pay of an American Axle worker. The median is the point at which half the workforce—including Dauch—is above and half below.
“Eighteen years ago, the workers at American Axle made massive sacrifices,” Fain told the crowd at the kickoff rally for workers and their families, excerpts on a YouTube video show. “These sacrifices weren’t for the company to make $8.4 billion in the last decade and keep it all for themselves.
“This sacrifice was meant for the people, the very people that make this company run, that make Three Rivers run.
“They want you to be afraid. They want you to think you can’t win. But we can win because we’re gonna fight like hell to get what we deserve,” Fain declared.
Individual workers also spoke up about what it’s like on the shop floor and why they deserve both higher pay and respect from management for their jobs.
American Axle bosses “run us to the bare bone, keep dumping more and more work on us,” said worker
Mark Hicks. “After all these years, I’m tired of the crap. As long as we can stick together and have solidarity in this union, I think we can improve our way of life.”
They also drew political support from Three Rivers Mayor Angel Johnston and from Michigan Lieut. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, a Democrat. This fall, Gilchrist is running for Secretary of State. The incumbent is retiring, as is Gilchrist’s boss, term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Said Gilchrist: “This negotiation represents a crossroads between working people and the billionaire class, between working people and corporate America, between people who gotta work every day and people who just sit back and count checks that other people earn for them.”
The video left it to Fain to have the last word, and it was a warning to American Axle. “It’s our time, and we’re coming for ours,” he declared. “Are you ready to square shit up?” he asked the packed auditorium at Three Rivers High School. The crowd roared.
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