Strikers have twice had guns pulled on them by non-union truckers

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-26-uaw-workers-california-stand-up-strike-expands/



ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA – The yellow-and-white big-rig truck approached slowly, maneuvering to turn into the Mopar Los Angeles Parts Distribution Center, owned by Stellantis. A half dozen striking members with UAW Local 230 formed a wall along the driveway, refusing to allow the truck entry. Trucks come to this Mopar site to engage in “cross-docking,” where they exchange parts that then go out to dealerships. Unionized Teamster drivers have refused to cross the picket lines; some have even joined UAW workers as they strike. So the trucking companies have been hiring non-union replacements to try to get parts moving. “We call them scabs,” said Mike Lacey, the strike captain on this past Sunday morning.

On two occasions during the first two days of the strike at this site, one of 38 parts facilities where workers walked out last Friday in an escalation of the UAW’s Stand Up Strike, a scene like this one became more dangerous when the truck driver pulled a gun on the strikers. In the incident that occurred when I was there, the UAW members seemed rather unfazed by this, holding their ground. After a short standoff, the truck reversed and pulled up the road toward another entrance. The workers told me they had locked that entrance with a new lock. But just to be sure, a few members piled into a van and took off toward that entrance.

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The workers here take four-hour shifts four days a week, and get $500 a week in strike pay. Most of the ones I spoke with have been working here for 25 years or more. “We’re doing this for the next generation,” said Cheryl Sprinkle, a front-office worker with 29 years at the facility, who has enough seniority to retire in October. Her husband, who was also at the picket lines, retired in 2009 from the plant, and was involved in the last strike here, an independent walkout in 1991 that lasted three months and cost the couple a house they had just moved into. Cheryl moved back with her kids to the family’s house in Wisconsin until the strike settled.

Sprinkle and others explained the pay scale at the facility, which picks and distributes parts to dealers across Southern California. The starting salary for new hires is $15.76 an hour, the workers told me, and while it accrues with experience, there’s a cap at $25 an hour, which can only be reached after eight years. That’s what comes with being stranded on the second tier of lower-wage workers, which has affected all new hires since 2009, when the union agreed to a deal saving the auto companies from bankruptcy. But the more senior workers on the top tier haven’t been benefiting much either. Lacey, who has 25 years with the company, said that workers at Mopar Los Angeles have seen a cumulative raise of just 6 percent over the past 16 years.

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[MichMan]

1. They should let the trucks in and then prevent them from leaving

Trapping the trucks and drivers inside the property for the duration of the strike.

[Recycle_Guru]

2. hopefully Trump doesn't encourage this behavior in his speech tomorrow