GM workers in Lansing mull giving strike authorization

DETROIT (AP) — Unionized General Motors workers in Lansing were voting Wednesday on whether to strike if the United Auto Workers fails to reach a new contract agreement with the automaker.

The vote is among the first to take place at UAW-represented plants across the country as GM, Ford Motor and Chrysler hammer out new contracts with the UAW.

Their old contracts expire at midnight Sept. 14.

The strike authorization vote doesn’t mean a strike will happen. The votes typically are held during contract talks and largely are symbolic.

“It’s not that we want a strike or anything like that,” said Chris “Tiny” Sherwood, the president of UAW Local 652 in Lansing. “It’s just to show we’re behind our negotiators, and we have that threat always there.”

Sherwood said local unions were asked by the UAW to hold strike authorization votes by Aug. 31.

Local 652 represents around 3,000 workers at a Cadillac plant and a stamping plant in Lansing. Sherwood said results would be available today.

New contracts were reached without strikes in 1999 and 2003.

There were strikes at individual GM plants during contract talks in 1996, but there hasn’t been a nationwide strike during negotiations since 1976.