The sprawling General Motors Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas, is a long way from Detroit and the Rust Belt, where both the modern American auto industry and labor movement took root. So when the national United Auto Workers (UAW) called for its 50,000 GM employees to go on strike last week, the nation turned its gaze north—while more than 4,200 workers in the UAW Local 276 walked picket lines deep in the heart of anti-union Texas.
On Thursday night just before 10:30, a crowd of several dozen picketers milled around the Gate 6 entrance at the GM Arlington Assembly Plant. Blue and red flashing lights from Arlington police cruisers cast an ominous glare on the scene. A police officer stood in the middle of the wide entrance leading into the main plant parking lot, alerting UAW picketers that they had two minutes to move from the sidewalk in front of the entrance to behind the metal barricades on either side.
This was the fourth day of the strike, but the first day that police had begun barricading picketers at the gate during shift changes so GM managers and non-union employees could drive in and out without obstruction. If a picketer crossed the barricade, police warned, they would be arrested. That night, tensions were high. Striking workers, who had just had their health insurance unexpectedly cut off by GM the day before, were furious that police—who are fellow union workers—were quite literally breaking their picket line. As a livestreamed video by a picketer showed, the lieutenant in charge continued ordering workers to stand behind a barricade. “That defeats the purpose of us being out here!” one picketer said. “You have one minute and 40 seconds,” the lieutenant responded as he looked at his watch. “Let’s go.”
