Despite intermittent efforts over the past three decades, the UAW union has been unable to organize employees of foreign-based automakers in states such as Alabama and Tennessee.
The city often becomes a magnet for anti-Arab sentiment during election years and global conflicts; however, the more interesting story is what happens in the city when the spotlight is turned off.
A strike would shake up the auto industry, even though both the union’s ranks and the share of the US automotive market controlled by GM, Ford and Stellantis have been shrinking for decades.
A look back at how Canada secured auto investment in the past shows how a peripheral economy gained a major auto sector — and how it might hold onto it even in the face of U.S. protectionism on EVs.