United Auto Workers members continue to picket outside General Motors plants for the third day in a row after negotiations fell apart Sunday night.
More than 49,000 workers have been picketing across the country, including 3,000 here in Western New York at plants in Tonawanda, Lockport and Rochester.
The UAW president said there’s been no word on GM and the Union coming to an agreement just yet.
Picketers will be out here 24/7 until an agreement is reached. Workers want affordable healthcare, but the UAW president confirmed this morning that right now their healthcare is suspended during the strike. They want equal wages for employees across the board and for temps who’ve worked here for five years to get hired permanently.
But it’s more than that. A manager who does a lot of the negotiations at the local table said it’s about making GM a good and sustainable company, which he says he feels right now it isn’t.
"The deeper end of the story is the relationship between the UAW and GM," said Craig Jensen, a manager at the plant and a UAW member. "GM likes to put out in the public that we're a team. There is no team effort here. It's not just the way they treat the hourly workers, it's the way they treat the managers too. We're losing a lot of good engineers. We've had a lot of top engineers quit because of the attitude in the plant."
As workers walk the picket line Wednesday morning, drivers have been honking their horns in support while members of other unions dropped off food.
UAW members are getting a $250 stipend each week until a deal is made.