TOLEDO, Ohio — A meeting Friday consisting of UAW Local 12's second-shift workers was something between a pep rally and a training course as the union prepared for the potential of a strike against the Big Three automakers.
"Not too many people know what to expect, especially our new hires, but even our seniority people," UAW Local 12 President Bruce Baumhower said. "Their wives are calling us up and asking, 'what's going to happen when our husbands go on strike?'"
The preparations happened the same day that Shawn Fain, the president of the collective UAW body, in a Facebook livestream told members that "he filed proposals from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis in a wastebasket," according to the Associated Press.
As second shift workers, they will be the people who will walk out of plants if contract negotiations do not succeed by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14.
"It has to be peaceful, it has to be," Walt Schweifert, a Local 12 union leader and servicing representative for Jeep, said of the potential strike. "You're going to a gate, you get in your cars, you go home. Do not damage anything, do not break anything. Mind you, management will be watching."
Those rules would apply for as long as the members picket, too. It's all so they have jobs to go back to when the strike is over.
But there are members of the union who have never picketed before, and they had questions of what to do if a strike is called for.
Leaders had to break down everything, from who the strike captains would be, to how long the strike shifts are and the rules of how to behave on the line during their six-hour shifts.
While there was a lot to learn, Baumhower said the enthusiasm of the second shifters gives him faith that their fight for fair contracts could soon be over.
"The solidarity we have right now is amazing, and it needs to be," he said.