HAMMOND, Ind. - Hundreds of workers demanding higher wages walked off the job Saturday at a Lear Corp. plant in northwest Indiana, beginning a strike that could affect a major Ford Motor Co. assembly plant in Chicago, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The Lear plant, in Hammond, makes automotive seats and employs 760 workers making seats for the Explorer and Taurus models produced at Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant.
The Ford plant could be vulnerable to serious supply chain disruptions because it operates on a just-in-time basis, meaning it receives parts sometimes just hours before installing them in vehicles rather than warehousing them on site.
Saturday's strike shut down the Lear plant, according to the United Auto Workers. All the plant's workers walked off the job and around 400 of them were on the picket line Saturday after two months of contract negotiations.
A Lear spokesman didn't return a call seeking comment on Saturday.
The workers say they are earning wages that are equivalent to the relative low levels paid in the fast-food industry.
The plant's workers had agreed in the previous contract talks five years ago to a two-tiered pay system that capped wages at $16 an hour for newer hires as a way to help the company come out of bankruptcy proceedings.
Now that the financial picture has improved, and workers say the company must give back. "Now is our time. It's a give and take; it's a two-way street," said Lorenzo Jones, 29, who has worked at the plant for three years and says it's a struggle to support his wife and three children on the $13 an hour he earns.
