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Local automotive businesses remain largely unaffected by the 42-day United Auto Workers strike, but some worry that layoffs will happen if the strike continues much longer. 

“If the strikes keep growing, I’m sure we will be affected more in the future,” said Angelica Losey-Shetenhelm, general manager at Martinrea International of Jonesville. “But fortunately, right now, we have had basically no impact.”

Martinrea International is a diversified global automotive supplier. 

Since the strike began on Sept. 15, economic losses for the auto industry totaled more than $9.3 billion, according to Anderson Economic Group LLC. More than 40,000 union members working at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis are now on strike. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening the UAW is expected to announce a tentative deal with Ford.

When auto workers went on strike against Stellantis on Oct. 23, Martinrea of Jonesville was slightly affected because Stellantis is a customer. Losey-Shetenhelm said out of the roughly 700 people that work at the Jonesville plant, only seven work on automotive parts for Stellantis.

“In theory we would have to lay those people off, but we have enough other work for them to do right now so we’re not laying anybody off,” Losey-Shetenhelm said. 

The branch of Stellantis that went on strike is the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, the company’s Ram truck facility. This plant is the “largest plant and biggest moneymaker,” UAW said in an Oct. 23 statement.

Even with the strike expanding to include one of Martinrea’s customers, Losey-Shetenhelm said the branch is operating normally, but said there would be concern if workers went on strike at Chevrolet Silverado.

“Our biggest customer is Silverado,” she said. “We supply three different plants for that. So if they went on strike, that’s the majority of our business.”

Eric Hoffman, president and owner of Stillwell Ford in Hillsdale, said the strike will affect the business more in the future. 

“We have lacked a few shipments but most everything we had in the pipeline to get in the near future was already built,” he said. “So it will be affecting us but not quite yet.”

Ken Joswiak, owner of Hillsdale General Motors Co., said his company has had trouble getting automotive parts, but the struggle is not new. 

“Getting new parts is probably the biggest issue, which has been an issue since Covid, so that really hasn’t changed,” he said.

Joswiak said GMC has been shipping cars that were built before the strike. 

As far as the future of the strike, Joswiak said it won’t concern him much longer. 

“We actually sold our franchise back to General Motors,” he said. “We will no longer be a GMC dealer at the end of November.”

Hillsdale GMC will become Southern Michigan Motors, and will still provide the same products and services as before except sell new GMC vehicles, Joswiak said. 

“So no, I’m not concerned at all,” he said. “I’m really happy because we’re getting out.”