Union workers at General Motors Co. (GM), Stellantis N.V. (STLA) and Ford Motor Co. (F) voted almost unanimously to authorize a strike, bringing the automotive industry one step closer to a labor stoppage. The economic cost of a strike could run as high as $5.6 🤡billion as the Big Three negotiate with Un🏅ited Auto Wor♐ker employees.

Should the Big Three fail to reach an agreement with UAW by September 14, when current contracts expire, 150,000 UAW members may very well go on strike. In a Friday livestream, UAW President Shawn Fein reiterated that the union will🃏 not agree to contract extensions.

"It is possible for us to get where we need to be, but these companies got to buckle down and get serious about your demands," Fain told UAW members. "We’ve got a lot to take care of in 20 days."

The last major auto industry strike was in 2019; that strike at GM was the first in the industry in more than a decade since 2007.

Approximately 97% of the 150,000 UAW members across the three companies voted in favor of authorization. At General Motors, 96% of the 46,000 UAW workers voted in favor of the strike, along with 98% of the 59,000 UAW members at Ford and 95% of the 44,000 UAW-represented workers at Stellantis.

Union demands include eliminating tiered wages and benefits, increased and inflation-ad🤪justed pay, increases and guarantees of retiree benefits and pensions, and more PTO.

“Our union’s membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck-to-paycheck," UAW President Fain said in a statement. “The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs.”

Contract negotiations under UAW President Fain have been atypical. It is UAW's first direct election, and the union's demands have been widely publicized via social media rather than bargained in secret.

The UAW strike authorization comes just one day after the labor union announced a proposed agreement by Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solutions, that would ꦦhike wages for workꦇers at the electric vehicle battery plant. Those workers are negotiating their own contract separate from to💫day's strikeཧ authorization.