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GM Pickup Truck Plant Could Shut Down Over Supplier Strike
Union Workers at Axle Supplier Dauch Walk Off Job
Key Takeaways:
- The strike at Dauch’s Michigan axle plant could shut down GM’s Flint pickup factory within 2 weeks.
- Employees are demanding higher wages and benefits after years of concessions dating to the 2008 crisis, arguing they were never made whole despite company profits.
- Dauch was called American Axle & Manufacturing until January, when it took the name of CEO David Dauch and his father, the late company founder Richard Dauch.
General Motors Co. could be forced to halt output at a Michigan truck plant later this month after union workers at axle supplier Dauch Corp. walked off the job in a labor dispute.
The automaker has enough of the parts on hand to last about two weeks, a spokesman said in an interview. GM is closely monitoring the situation.
About 1,000 workers went on strike at midnight at a Dauch factory in Three Rivers, Mich., which supplies axles to GM’s pickup truck plant in Flint.
The workers are demanding wage increases from the current level, which tops out at $22 an hour, and want better benefits.
“These members have built you an empire of profit while getting treated like dirt,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said in a webcast announcing the strike. “They have taken wage cuts, benefit cuts. The CEO has made $111 million in the last decade while workers continue to scrape to get by.”
Employees at the plant took pay cuts from $29 an hour to as low as $14.50 in 2008 as the financial crisis and recession took hold and GM was edging toward bankruptcy.
UAW Local 2093 members at American Axle’s Three Rivers plant are ON STRIKE after the company refused a fair deal. While execs took home millions, workers are fighting for basic dignity. No Contract? No Axles!#UAWRegion1D pic.twitter.com/oVavUmYfKU — UAW (@UAW) June 1, 2026
The workers never got paid back for the concessions they made, said Josh Jagger, president of UAW Local 2093, which represents the workers, in the webcast.
Dauch Corp. was called American Axle & Manufacturing until January, when it took the name of CEO David Dauch and his father, the late company founder Richard Dauch.
