CLEVELAND — As day three of UAW negotiations with the big three automakers wraps up in Detroit, Northeast Ohio consumers are concerned about what the strike could do to their wallets.
Cars are a convenience and provide the luxury of freedom. For Gabrielle Furlong, that was taken away from her after she was hit by a reckless driver on 4-80, totaling her car.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get a car since the accident,” Furlong said.
For the last year and a half, Furlong turned a negative into a positive. She began walking to work while living downtown and using Uber. But in July, she moved to Tremont and is now in need of a new car.
“After getting in a car accident too, you don't really want to necessarily hop right back into one, but it’s been over a year, and I am ready to kind of have my own car again and drive to work,” Furlong said.
The UAW strike comes at a bad time for Furlong during her search. Auto workers want a 36% pay increase. Executive Vice President of the Northeast Ohio Auto Dealers Association, Tim Elliot, said if that percentage is met, those labor costs will directly fall onto consumers.
“That cost gets added to the production, overall production of the vehicle,” Elliot said. “The consumer is going to pay more money for a car because of that increase.”
Auto dealers may soon be impacted too. Auto dealers only have so much inventory.
“Beyond 60 days [if the strike continues], we now run into trouble,” said Elliot. “The effect is as inventories dry up, but the demand for cars is still there, the effect is going to be prices, and we’ve already lived that kind of through COVID and the chip shortage.”
Business Law Professor at Case Western Reserve University, Juscelino Colares, said he believes prolonged negotiations are not in the best interest of the union workers or the big three automakers. The longer the wait, the quicker consumers may choose a car from non-union foreign competitors.
“There's a lot of pressure on the car, on the automobile industry right now in the Western world to compete with China because they know the Chinese are at the gates,” Colares said.
Sunday marks day three of the strike. It’s unknown how long it may take for an agreement to be met, but in the meantime, Furlong’s car search is on pause until the strike settles.
“It’s struggling to try and find a car right now,” Furlong said. “Before the winter is when I am trying to get myself into a new car, but we will see. I hope when things get worked out with the strike happening and all the factors that go into these decisions that hopefully soon something will pan out, but it’s a waiting game right now."
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