The following statement was issued by the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee after workers at the Saginaw, Michigan auto parts plant voted down a second sellout contract brought back by the United Auto Workers bureaucracy. After the massive rebuke UAW Local 699 officials called a membership meeting for Sunday morning to discuss “next steps.” For information on joining the rank-and-file committee, fill out the form after this statement.

Brothers and Sisters,

We have been patient long enough. We have voted down the UAW leadership's rotten tentative agreements twice, by 96.2 percent and 73.3 percent. We watched as the UAW International and Local 699 officials extended the contract behind our backs and told us it was illegal to strike. They came back with a rotten deal expanding the tier system, locking in poverty wages, and handing the company unchecked control over line speed and cycle-time surveillance.

We are tired of the games, the loopholes, the memorandums of understanding. No one in the plant trusts the union leadership. This has to stop.

We have to recognize the enormous power we have. It is now or never. If we stop working, everything comes to a screeching halt. We can mobilize our brothers and sisters at other parts plants and the Big Three. On Monday, American Axle Three Rivers workers voted by 98 percent to authorize a strike. Contracts are expiring at Dana, Bridgewater, and Magna Seating. Now is the time to strike!

After we voted down the latest pro-company deal, UAW Local 699 officials have called a membership meeting Sunday to discuss “next steps.” There is only one next step: a membership vote to walk out on strike on Monday. We are not asking the UAW officials for their blessing. We are ordering them to abide by the will of the membership.

If they refuse to hold a strike vote, they should step aside. We will organize our own vote and elect a committee to organize a strike, outline our demands, and reach out to other auto and auto parts workers for support to win our demands.

No contract, no work! No arbitration! No extensions! Strike now!

Every extension the UAW officials grant is time given to Nexteer to stockpile parts and break our strike before it begins. Any arbitration is a trap to impose the dictates of a company-friendly board and stifle the power of workers on the shop floor. We reject all of it.

No contract means no work, and that must be enforced by us, the rank and file. We demand $1,000 a week in strike pay. The UAW's $850 million strike fund was built by the workers. It belongs to the workers. It must be used to fight for the workers, not for the bureaucrats’ cushy vacations at Black Lake.

Remove the bargaining committee. Put the rank and file in control!

The current bargaining committee has delivered two sellouts in a row and forfeited any right to speak in our name. We call for its immediate removal and replacement by a committee of trusted rank-and-file workers--chosen by shop floor workers, accountable to shop floor workers, negotiating openly, on terms set by us. Every step of the negotiations must be conducted in full view of the membership. The days of backroom deals while we are told to wait are over.

Coordinate across the industry. Honor our picket lines.

We are not alone. Nexteer produces steering systems for GM, Ford, and Stellantis. When steering components stop, assembly lines stop. We occupy a strategic position in the supply chain and we must use it.

With rising prices, gas near $5 a gallon, and constant wars, everyone is fed up--not just in America, but around the world. We must call on our fellow autoworkers across the US and internationally to honor our picket lines and refuse to handle scab parts. A strike at Nexteer, coordinated with workers throughout the industry, can send shockwaves from Saginaw to Detroit to Mexico and beyond. That is the perspective of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), and it is the only strategy that can win.

Our demands:

Nexteer posted $4.6 billion in revenue and $102 million in profit in 2025. Management received $10,000 bonuses. There is no shortage of money. The only way to scrape by at Nexteer right now is to work massive overtime. No one should have to break their body down or work more than 40 hours a week just to make a living. We deserve time with our families and freedom from constant worry about our jobs. Now they are adding systems to monitor cycle time, and the union is going along with it. That’s just immoral. It must be abolished.

The Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee urges workers to adopt the following demands for our strike:

• Abolition of all tiers. Equal pay and benefits for equal work.
• Immediate, substantial wage increases that exceed the rate of inflation, with cost-of-living adjustments.
• A living starting wage and rapid progression to top pay, not 24 or 48 months of poverty.
• Full healthcare coverage for all workers and their families. No premium hikes, no doubled weekly contributions.
• Enforceable limits on overtime, speedup, and scheduling abuse.
• Job security and anti-outsourcing protections. Full transparency and the right to oppose the shifting of work to lower-wage operations.
• Workers’ control over safety and staffing, with elected rank-and-file safety reps empowered to stop unsafe work.
• Explicit, enforceable prohibitions on cycle-time surveillance and the use of tracking data for discipline, job elimination, and speedup.

Join the fight!

As one of our brothers put it: “Fifteen years ago we were told this was just a ‘bump in the road.’ It's time to pay the hard-working floor workers what is owed.”

He is right. This was not a bump in the road. This has been the road, and we have been on it long enough.

Join and build the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee. Talk to your co-workers on your shift and in your department. Attend Sunday’s meeting to vote on immediate strike action. The power is in our hands if we are willing to take it and use it. We are not pleading with the union bureaucrats--we, the rank-and-file, are asserting our control.

No contract, no work! Strike to win!

— Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee