WASHINGTON, DC – Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman on Monday released the following statement celebrating the United Auto Workers’ new tentative agreements reached in recent days with Stellantis and General Motors. If approved by UAW membership along with the Ford agreement, these deals would end the union’s historic strike against the Big 3 automakers:
“I’m proud that in addition to the tentative agreement with Ford, the United Auto Workers have also reached deals with GM and Stellantis. Tens of thousands of workers stood up and demanded a share in the massive profits they create. And they won.
“I want to send all of these brave workers and their families my deepest congratulations on their historic victory.
“These agreements secured by UAW President Shawn Fain, the negotiating team, and union workers are truly groundbreaking. Many people doubted these workers and their ability to fight and win. But they held the line and secured historic agreements, proof that paying these workers what they deserved all along was possible.
“The brave UAW workers who held the line for over six weeks set an example for working people across the country, that better things are possible when workers stand together and fight. That’s why I was proud to visit UAW picket lines in Michigan and Ohio in addition to Pennsylvania, because the fair deals workers are fighting for goes beyond state lines.
“The union way of life is sacred, it built Pennsylvania and it built this country. These UAW workers showed us all how strong organized labor can be when we stand together.”
Senator Fetterman is a fierce advocate of the union way of life and has been standing in solidarity with UAW members since day 1 of the strike. Fetterman has visited five UAW picket lines in three states over the six weeks of the strike, including the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, MI, on the very first weekend of the strike. In that time, he also introduced a congressional resolution in solidarity with striking UAW members and published an op-ed in MSNBC about the ongoing strike against the Big 3 and his support for the striking workers.
