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UAW expands strike to GM plant in Texas as company says walkout costs $200 million a week

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The United Auto Workers union expanded its strike to a giant General Motors SUV factory in Arlington, Tex., just after the company told investors Tuesday morning that the nearly six-week-long work stoppage was costing it $200 million a week.

The union said 5,000 workers walked out of the plant that makes the company’s profitable Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade SUVs. The news came a day after 6,800 UAW members began striking against a large Stellantis factory in Michigan that produces Ram pickup trucks.

About 30 percent of the union’s 15,000 workers at Detroit’s Big Three automakers are on strike.

UAW expands strike to biggest Stellantis plant as 6,800 walk out in Michigan

About an hour before the UAW announcement, GM reported that its net income in the third quarter fell by about 7 percent from a year earlier, to $3.1 billion. The strike, which began Sept. 15, contributed to the drop and has cost the company about $800 million so far, GM executives said.

GM also cautioned that consumer demand for electric vehicles was slowing, and the company said it would remain flexible in producing gasoline-powered vehicles vs. EVs.

UAW President Shawn Fain said the union was hitting the Texas factory because GM’s latest offer to workers “fails to reward UAW members for the profits they’ve generated.”

GM, like Ford and Stellantis, is offering full-time workers a 23 percent wage increase over a 4½-year contract. But Fain said GM’s offer lags behind Ford on other matters, including 401(k) contributions and cost-of-living adjustments to wages.

“It is clear that GM can afford a record contract and do more to repair the harm done by years of falling real wages and declining standards across the Big Three,” Fain said in a statement.

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