This is the first of Intersection’s special posts when breaking news warrants.
This year’s set of contract negotiations is unlike any in recent memory. The usual secrecy of talks between the Detroit carmakers and the United Auto Workers no longer applies.
UAW President Shawn Fain, the first leader in generations to be directly elected by union members, has upset the protocols that were traditionally followed and in the process, woken up the Detroit companies.
In a Facebook Live broadcast on Wednesday afternoon, Fain laid out a strategy that is headed in one direction:
Some kind of strike, somewhere.
How big, and where? Right now, that’s the mystery. But I can’t see anything but a walkout happening when the contracts expire at midnight Thursday.
Here’s why.