Stellantis contests UAW strike authorization vote held by local chapter

(CBS DETROIT) - Stellantis says it intends to file more lawsuits against the UAW Tuesday after a strike authorization vote was held by a local chapter last week.

The automaker says it is contesting a strike authorization vote held by UAW Local 186, which represents workers at the Denver Parks Distribution Center and will include a "grievance procedure violation" in the suit it plans to file.

"According to the agreed upon language in the 2023 UAW-Stellantis Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the procedure for strikable grievances has three steps, each giving the company a specific number of days to respond," Stellantis said in a release. "The UAW educated its members on this process during one of its recent Facebook Live updates. It is unclear whether the Local chose to ignore the UAW education on its own or the UAW International instructed the Local to violate this process. Either way, the process wasn't followed."

Once the requirements of all three steps are completed, a UAW local can hold a strike authorization vote. Stellantis says that UAW workers at the Denver Parks Distribution Center voted before completing the third step, which would make a strike action after this vote illegal.

In addition to the lawsuit regarding the strike authorization vote in Denver, Stellantis says it will also file two other lawsuits on Tuesday, against the UAW and other locals.

These lawsuits will be filed "for not honoring its contractual obligations, ignoring the clear language in Investment Letter 311 giving the company discretion to make business decisions and violating the CBA by calling for a mid-contract strike based on pending grievances," said Stellantis. "The company remains undeterred from seeing this litigation through to conclusion and fully intends to seek monetary damages."

This comes after Stellantis initially announced it had filed a lawsuit against the UAW , and then announced that it rejected the UAW's proposal to restore the Jobs Bank concept , which the company said was a contributing factor to its bankruptcy in 2009.

The dispute stems from when the UAW said it was prepared to file grievances after saying the automaker wasn't keeping up with the commitments it made to reopen the idled Belvidere plant. The union claims Stellantis was "unreceptive" in talks regarding the plant's reopening, but Stellantis says the language in Letter 311 allows room for the automaker to make some changes with business decisions.