To contact or join the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee, fill out the form at the end of this article.

Brothers and Sisters,

The new tentative agreement (TA) presented by UAW Local 699 is a rotten sellout. Every worker should vote it down with the contempt it deserves. The very fact that the union leadership has presented this new company-dictated deal after we voted down the first one by more than 96 percent shows that we have to oust the bureaucrats and their bargaining committee, establish shop floor control and organize an all-out strike.

The rot extends to the very top of the UAW, beginning with President Shawn Fain and his cronies—and their six-figure salaries and expense accounts. To win a decent contract that provides a living wage, ends the speedup, and gives us job security and a safe workplace, we need to reach out to our fellow autoworkers across the US and in Mexico, Canada and around the world. We need to coordinate our fight with theirs and combine the struggle against the auto bosses with a rebellion against the traitors in Solidarity House and the local union halls. That’s the agenda of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.

We are in a powerful position to strike and win our demands. When we shut down production of steering components we can bring the Big Three assembly plants to a halt.

Contracts at a whole number of parts and supply companies expire this month, including Dana (4,000 workers in four states), Bridgewater Interiors in Lansing and metro Detroit (2,200 workers), and Magna seating in Highland Park (900 workers). Some 1,000 workers at American Axle in Three Rivers, Michigan have a strike authorization vote on May 11. Sterling Heights Assembly Plant workers are voting on strike authorization this week.

A strike at Nexteer would send shock waves across the entire industry and create conditions for hundreds of thousands of autoworkers in the US, Canada, Mexico, and internationally to take up the same fight. Under just-in-time delivery, our strike could halt production across GM, Ford and Stellantis within days.

The union bosses and their bargaining committee are cynically counting on our desperation in the face of exploding gas and food prices, driven by the criminal war in Iran, to wear us down and get us to vote “yes.” They are throwing in a one-time ratification bonus of $2,000 and a $3,000 grievance settlement as sops to obtain a “yes” vote while agreeing to the retention of poverty wages. In this way they use their previous sellouts to pressure us to accept a new one.

The new TA is in some ways worse than the first one. It adds a new “grow into” period for new-hires. Current new-hires will be required to work 24 months, and workers hired after ratification will be required to work 48 months before reaching the full production wage band. The company and the union are expanding the tier system for the next generation of workers.

The new TA also extends the contract from March 20, 2030 to December 20, 2030, locking in the wage table for nine additional months. Starting pay will be $19.50, a poverty wage. At the end of four years, production workers with at least 24 months on the job will make full rate of $27 an hour. This is the same wage that workers at Saginaw Steering earned under Delphi more than 20 years ago. In purchasing power, a $27/hour wage in 2005 would be worth $45.65/hour today.

Production workers will receive a $1.43 raise upon ratification. This will go up a dollar a year until 2030. In real terms, assuming annual inflation of 4.0 percent, the nominal wage increases will be virtually wiped out.

Nexteer expanded its revenues to $4.6 billion in 2025 and pocketed $102 million in profit. Management received $10,000 bonuses.

The UAW bureaucracy agrees that the company should have complete control over line speed. There is nothing in this TA that prohibits Nexteer from using cycle-time data to discipline workers, eliminate jobs, and drive up the pace of production. Any minimal wage gain is undercut by the union-backed “right” of the company to sweat more production from fewer workers in less time.

Our 2020 strike was a farce. As one brother describes it:

Our last strike in 2020 lasted only 20 hrs. ... We were called back to work by the International with no actual contract … and waited about three months for a written contract. … We were told that lawyers in Detroit were going through our contract to get rid of the “grey areas”… That strike was a joke. We stood out in the cold for a bit and had some news reports ... but nothing was actually accomplished.

That must not happen again. We must appeal to auto and auto parts workers across the US and beyond our borders to honor our picket lines and refuse to handle scab parts.

The bargaining committee must be dismissed and replaced by a committee of trusted rank-and-file workers chosen by us, accountable to us, negotiating in the open, and on terms drawn up by us.

The rejection of this contract must mean the beginning of a strike. No return to endless extensions of the existing rotten contract so the union and the company can claim it is illegal for us to walk out while the company builds up stockpiles.

No contract, no work! Strike pay of at least $1,000 a week.

It is not a question of pressuring the bureaucrats to do better. The solution is to remove them from control and replace them with independent rank-and-file power on the shop floor. That is the purpose of the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee, part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).

Our fight is not simply about Nexteer. It is about which class controls the wealth that workers produce. The answer to war, austerity and poverty wages is the same: the international unity of the working class against the capitalist system.

The Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee reaffirms the following demands:

•   Abolition of all tiers;
•   Immediate substantial wage increases that exceed the rate of inflation, with cost-of-living adjustments;
•   A livable starting wage and rapid progression to top pay;
•   Full healthcare coverage for all workers and their families;
•   Enforceable limits on overtime, speedup and scheduling abuse;
•   Job security and anti-outsourcing protections;
•   Workers’ control over safety and staffing;
•   Explicit, enforceable prohibitions on the new cycle-time surveillance or the use of tracking data for discipline.

We say to all of our brothers and sisters: Fight to win these demands! Join and help build the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee!