Almost 3,600 United Auto Workers members at Volvo-owned Mack Trucks walked off the job for the first time in 35 years this last Saturday at six locations across three different states.
According to the official news release on the UAW’s website, the strike is to protest unfair pay, compensation and benefits for workers and their families.
The locations of the walkouts mainly occurred at the Local 677 union in Allentown and Middletown, Pennsylvania; unions Local 171 and 1247 in Hagerstown, Maryland; Local 2301 in Baltimore, Maryland; and Local 2420 in Jacksonville, Florida.
“UAW members get up every day and put in long, hard hours of work from designing to building Mack trucks,” said Ray Curry, secretary-treasurer of the UAW and director of the heavy truck department, in the official statement. “UAW members carry on their shoulders the profits of Mack and they are simply asking for dignity, fair pay and job protections.”
Attached and below, please find a statement from Mack Trucks President Martin Weissburg regarding the United Auto Workers union’s decision to strike. Please contact me with questions.
Mack Trucks President Martin Weissburg Monday issued the following statement regarding the United Auto Workers union’s decision to strike, which involves about 3,500 employees at facilities in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida:
“We are surprised and disappointed that the UAW decided to strike, rather than to allow our employees to keep building trucks and engines while the parties continued to negotiate. The positive working relationship between local UAW leadership and management at our facilities was clearly in evidence throughout the negotiations, and progress was being made.
“Mack Trucks is part of the only heavy-truck manufacturing group that assembles all of its trucks and engines for the North American market here in the United States, and continues to compete against products built in lower-cost countries. We have no plans to close any U.S. manufacturing; on the contrary, we’ve invested more than $400 million in our plants and logistics network over the last ten years, and since 2015 have insourced work that has created more than 500 jobs in our U.S. factories. We have significant new investments in both facilities and products on the way.
“We are committed to the collective bargaining process, and remain confident that we will be able to arrive at an agreement that provides a competitive wage and benefit package for our employees and families, and helps to ensure the company’s competitiveness.”
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