One sentence in a contract document that runs more than 300 pages is drawing scrutiny as the United Auto Workers warns it could strike Stellantis NV over the automaker’s delays reopening the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois.

The language says that the company’s investments and employment levels are “contingent upon plant performance, changes in market conditions, and consumer demand continuing to generate sustainable and profitable volumes for all of the U.S. manufacturing facilities described above.”

Stellantis recently shared that bit of legalese with its employees as it seeks to explain its decision to delay its Belvidere investments. Those investments were to include launching a mega Mopar parts hub this year and producing a midsized pickup at the facility by 2027.

The company, which argues a strike would be illegal, told its workers in the memo that it "remains firmly committed to reopening the Belvidere plant" but that the timing isn't right now due to current market conditions and consumer demand levels amid the electric vehicle transition.

Union leaders — who are worried the carmaker might never reopen the high-profile facility that shuttered early last year — have brushed off the contract language in question. They are building a case that the company’s investment delays aren't about a tough auto market — General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are doing just fine, they say — but rather mismanagement by CEO Carlos Tavares and “corporate greed.”

“There’s nothing to do with business conditions with their decision," Kevin Gotinsky, who oversees the UAW's Stellantis department, told The Detroit News after a Belvidere-focused rally in Sterling Heights last week. "The decision is all about Tavares being selfish and wanting to blame the autoworker for everything and appease the shareholders.”

UAW officials, including Gotinsky and President Shawn Fain, point out that the overall U.S. auto industry grew in sales so far in 2024 year-over-year, even as Stellantis' sales fell 16% in the first half. They blame the company's struggles on "price gouging" and criticized Tavares' $39.5 million in compensation last year, higher than other auto executives outside Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk. Fain labeled the company last week as a "vampire that's just feeding off blue-collar communities like Belvidere."

A letter from Fain and Gotinsky to Stellantis members this week said the company "keeps changing the reason why they can't keep their contractual commitments" on Belvidere. They wrote that Stellantis has claimed there are architectural problems involved with retooling the plant. The officials also suggested that Stellantis may want to produce a different, non-electric vehicle than originally planned at the facility, though they said the plant was "slated to build both" an electric and gas-powered version of a midsized truck.

"Our fight right now is about Belvidere. But it impacts all of us," the letter from Fain and Gotinsky said. "If this company can violate their commitment to Belvidere, what will they violate next?"

A Stellantis spokesperson, Jodi Tinson, declined to respond to questions about architectural issues at Belvidere or whether the company wants to build a gas-powered or EV truck at the facility. Tavares has said the company is generally taking a multi-energy approach to its vehicle lineup in the coming years. It's developed several flexible platforms for its vehicles, allowing it to move easily between gas, hybrid, and EV designs as consumer demand necessitates.

Experts said the Belvidere dispute could head in several directions. It could result in a strike of one or many plants — potentially at a complicated time just before the November election; the union has laid out a timeline that could see workers picketing as early as mid-October. It also could very well head to court, where a judge could parse the contractual language and decide if a strike is allowed.

According to the contract, if a strike were to stretch beyond 10 days, the company would have the option of canceling the pact altogether.

Susan Schurman, distinguished professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, said the 2023 contract's Letter 311 language, outlining Stellantis' U.S. investments, does appear to give the company wiggle room to make changes under certain conditions. The National Labor Relations Board would probably uphold the union's ability to strike over Belvidere, she said, but a court might not share that opinion.

Still, the union didn't have much choice but to push back after Stellantis said it would delay the Belvidere reopening, Schurman said.

"You have just one job, and that is to represent the interests of your members to the best of your ability," the professor said. "If an employer starts to slide on commitments made in a labor contract, and you don't take a strong stand, then what is the value in a labor contract?"

Union officials say they are worried that if they allow Stellantis to delay, it would push back the midsized pickup truck's launch into 2028, after the current contract ends. Showing leniency could also signal to the company that it can get away with ignoring other investment commitments in the contract, the union argues. Those commitments totaled $18.9 billion.

UAW officials this week said that 17 UAW locals have filed grievances over the Belvidere delays, with some already progressing multiple steps into the process that could eventually result in a strike.

“Belvidere was a dead community," Gotinsky said. "We fought hard and gave up a lot (at the bargaining table in 2023) to get a commitment there, and now they’re going back on it.

"I mean, if we don’t follow through with it, our members lose twice because we gave up something in order to get those commitments," he added. "That $18.9 billion wasn’t free. Otherwise we could’ve fought for larger (supplemental unemployment) pay, a jobs bank, things of that nature, that we didn’t, because we felt comfortable we had security in our membership across the board, with the investment.”

Strikes are only allowed mid-contract for specific, limited reasons. In its negotiations last year with Stellantis, UAW bargainers secured the ability to strike over several new ones — including plant closings, outsourcing, and product and investment commitments, like in Belvidere. GM union negotiators secured a similar breadth of new strike rights as Stellantis, while Ford workers can now strike over plant closings.

Marick Masters, a professor emeritus of business at Wayne State University, said if the Belvidere dispute reaches the point of a strike, the union could return to its strategy from the "Stand Up Strike" of last fall.

That was when the union ratcheted up pressure on the three companies by slowly adding more plants to its strike list — a method that kept executives guessing about where their workers might walk out next. Yet the timing of such a strike right around the presidential election could introduce new complications, Masters said.

After last fall's strikes, Schurman said one thing is clear: Stellantis should not underestimate the union's willingness to fight.

"If the companies haven't figured this out, they need to figure this out: The current president of the UAW is not a person who's going to tolerate this sort of thing," she said. "He's going to play hardball. And that's what's happening."

But that same "hardball" mentality might also describe Stellantis' Tavares, Masters said. He said the union could run the risk of frustrating the CEO to the point that he moves to shift production and investments currently committed to the United States to Mexico or other so-called "best-cost" countries.

His takeaway: "It's high stakes."

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