Big 3 Automakers Start Worker Furloughs as UAW Strike Hits 6th Day

UAW president says GM’s ’record' offer of a 20 percent wage increase is not enough.

Members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket outside of the UAW Local 900 headquarters across the street from the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., on Sept. 15, 2023. Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images

As the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike enters its sixth day, the Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—are beginning to furlough workers.

GM announced on Sept. 20 that it idled a manufacturing plant in Kansas, laying off nearly all of the site’s roughly 2,000 employees. The company noted that there’s no work available for most of the workers at the assembly plant because UAW-represented members at another GM factory went on strike.