Members of the United Auto Workers union hold a rally and practice picket near a Stellantis plant in Detroit, Aug. 23, 2023.Michael Wayland / CNBCDETROIT – United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain appears ready to fire up the picket lines.The union’s bulldog new leader has repeatedly vowed to drive a hard bargain with Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis in contract negotiations ahead of an expiration at 11:59 p.m. on Sept 14.He’s maintained it’s a hard deadline that his leadership team does not plan to extend, like the union has in the past, and that he’s not afraid to take roughly 150,000 auto workers out of factories if necessary.That — plus the revelation late Thursday that Fain and the union filed unfair labor practice charges against GM and Stellantis with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the companies weren’t bargaining in good faith — makes a strike against one, if not all three of the automakers, increasingly inevitable.Unlike prior union leaders, Fain is attempting to negotiate with all three automakers at once, refusing to select a “target” company to focus on while extending deals at the others. He’s also been far more confrontational with the automakers compared to previous union leaders, at times launching personal attacks on executives.There’s a belief among some industry analysts and experts that a strike, or several, may be necessary to convince UAW members that the union leaders fought as hard as they could to reach the demands.”I expect there to be a strike,” said Art Wheaton, a labor professor at the Worker Institute at Cornell University. “I think there’s a reasonable chance they strike Stellantis first and then give a couple more days for Ford and GM to give a better offer.”Wheaton believes that a strike at Stellantis is nearly guaranteed with the sides as far apart as they are now. The union could use that work stoppage as a warning to GM and Ford to finalize their deals, he said.”I think a strike is almost essential at Stellantis or they will never get a deal ratified,” Wheaton said. “Stellantis is picking a fight, saying, ‘Try me if you dare.'”Strikes could take various forms, including a national strike, where all workers under the contract cease working, or targeted work stoppages at certain plants over local contra …
