Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As several thousand auto workers with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union hit the picket lines on strike in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, local UAW members are ready to join them if the call comes their way to do so.
It was late Monday when, in a video statement, UAW President Shawn Fain threatened Detroit's Big Three auto companies with an expansion of the strike to other areas of the nation unless major progress has been made in contract negotiations by this Friday.
"I believe the membership has taken that message as a positive sign. We will strike, if needed," said UAW Region 9 Assistant Director, Ray Jensen on WBEN on Wednesday. "Our membership, as I stated before, is fired up and ready to go. So we are just waiting for that call to find out who's next."
According to Jensen, President Fain is set to have a Facebook Live on Friday at 10 a.m. ET with a potential announcement of which Locals will join the UAW strike next. Whether or not that announcement could include Western New York UAW members, Jensen says they are waiting and ready for what's next.
"Negotiations are slow, they're definitely slow. We'll just have to wait and see what happens," he said. "President Fain has said if the corporations don't meet our demands, there will be more plants taking out. I believe he truly meant that, and again, we will just have to wait and see what happens on Friday when he does his Facebook Live."
While membership in Western New York is still going to work without a contract in place, Jensen doesn't know if he would call things "business as usual" at this time.
"The International has done a great job at trickling down information to the region. The region has done a great job at getting information to the locals, and explaining to the members what exactly it means to work under an expired contract," Jensen explained. "Again, our membership is fired up, ready to go, and we are just waiting for that call. This stand up strike is a catalyst to worker power and economic justice for so many industries across America, not just auto workers. It will have an unmeasurable ripple effect of change and labor practices across the country, just like the sit down strike did in 1937."
Over the last several days, local UAW members continue to conduct practice pickets, and are also holding solidarity rallies in preparation for a potential strike. This includes a solidarity event on Wednesday in Tonawanda at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. ET at their union hall on River Road.
From what Jensen has heard from his other brothers and sisters in labor from other unions, he says it's mostly a class war between the corporate billionaire class versus the working class.
"We are on the side of good, the moral side of right. Auto workers are part of our communities, just as well as other brothers and sisters are," Jensen said. "It's our families and neighbors that are feeling the same price gouging, stagnant wages and inflation that we are. Our fight is their fight. Our families and neighbors are working class Americans - truck drivers, teachers, nurses, janitors, construction workers, waitresses and bartenders. The billionaires don't know us, they don't care about us. All they think about is ways to exploit us and our communities to get ridiculously richer off of our backs for decades."
About 4,300 GM and Ford workers in Western New York would be impacted by a walkout, if one is announced later this week.
