In 2008, 3,600 workers at auto parts supplier American Axle & Manufacturing in Michigan and New York struck from February 26 through May 23 against a threatened 50 percent wage cut–from $28 to $14 per hour.
Workers were in a battle against not just their employer, but against an ongoing pattern of wage-cutting contracts imposed by the United Auto Workers union. The strike took place soon after the UAW first imposed a two-tier structure at Ford, GM and Chrysler in late 2007, and one year before an expanded two-tier wage, set at 50 percent of standard base pay, was imposed for all new hires in the Obama administration's forced bankruptcy and restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009.