Nexteer Automotive workers in Saginaw, Michigan have delivered a powerful rebuke to the United Auto Workers bureaucracy by voting down a UAW-backed concessions contract by 96 percent. The 1,300 workers at the former General Motors plant are determined to defeat the corporate-UAW conspiracy to expand two-tier wages and benefits, increase health care costs and condemn new hires to poverty wages.

Nexteer workers hold enormous power. The plant produces critical steering components for the most profitable GM, Ford and Stellantis vehicles. Any serious strike would quickly lead to the slowdown or halting of production at major assembly plants across the Midwest. This is precisely why UAW President Shawn Fain and the UAW apparatus want to prevent such a strike. In the aftermath of the massive no vote, UAW Local 699 officials have not even suggested calling a strike.

In previous struggles at Nexteer—in 2015 and 2021—overwhelming opposition was overridden by the union bureaucracy through delays, revotes, and pressure campaigns, with essentially the same concessions forced through. If Nexteer workers are to prevent a repeat of such an outcome, they must take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands.

Will Lehman, a rank-and-file worker from Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania who is running for UAW president in 2026, issued the following statement on the contract rejection by Nexteer workers:

Brothers and sisters at Nexteer,

Your 96 percent “no” vote rejecting the UAW’s sellout contract is a powerful and historic act. It shows that workers are not willing to accept poverty wages, tiers and endless concessions. It exposes the divide between the sentiment of the membership and the bureaucrats who thought it was good enough to bring back to you after “negotiating” behind closed doors. If your fight is going to succeed, it must be led by you, workers on the shop floor, those who are most committed to fighting the sellout, and are tied to your conditions on the shop floor.

A “no” vote is only the beginning. If the same officials who tried to ram through this agreement remain in control, they will do what they always do: Stall and delay, bring back the same deal under a different name and force revotes until they get the result they want.

You cannot leave power in their hands. Take control: form a rank-and-file committee. Workers must organize themselves independently. Form a Nexteer Rank-and-File Committee, made up of trusted workers from the shop floor, accountable only to you.

This committee must:

- Take control of all information about negotiations

- Ensure full transparency and democratic oversight

- Link up workers across all shifts and departments

- Establish direct communication with other plants

- Without this, your vote will be undermined.

Prepare for a real fight—prepare for a strike

If the contract has been rejected, that decision must be enforced. That means preparing now for strike action, organized by workers themselves—not controlled or shut down by the apparatus.

But this fight cannot be won in isolation. Appeal to Big Three autoworkers—break the divisions of dividing workers from each other. I appeal directly to autoworkers at GM, Ford and Stellantis:

You face the same conditions—tiers, rising costs, and endless concessions. The divisions between parts workers and assembly workers have been deliberately enforced by the UAW to weaken all workers. They must be broken. Nexteer workers are not separate from you—they are the front line of the same struggle.

I call on all autoworkers to take a stand:

- Refuse to handle scab parts produced during a strike

- Honor Nexteer workers’ picket lines

- Oppose any attempt to continue production based on their exploitation

Workers at GM Flint Truck Assembly, Ford Dearborn Truck, and Stellantis plants have enormous power. Used together, that power can shut down the entire system of exploitation.

Turn this into a broader movement. The companies are organized globally. Workers must be as well. Reach out to:

- Other parts workers

- Big Three plants

- Autoworkers in Mexico, Canada and beyond

And finally, the war abroad is connected to the war against the working class here at home. It is not the sons and daughters of the oligarchs who will be sacrificed for the illegal and criminal war in Iran, but our kids and in many cases, our co-workers.

President Donald Trump declared that the federal government should stop paying for daycare, Medicare and Medicaid, all of which, he indicated, must be sacrificed for the illegal and criminal war in Iran. Don’t send any money for daycare,” Trump says, because “we’re fighting wars.” He added that the federal government’s role was to “guard the country,” before dismissing Social Security, which serves more than 70 million people; Medicare, which covers about 68 million; and Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), which together cover more than 75 million people, including about 36 million children, as “little scams.”

Your struggle can become the starting point of a unified offensive of the entire auto working class. This is a fight for workers power At its core, this is not just about one contract. It is about who controls the workplace, the union and society. An apparatus tied to management and capitalist politicians or the workers? There are more of us than them.