The United Auto Workers strike Friday, which shut down assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri, may have bypassed Illinois for now, but the state remains in the middle of everything as the labor dispute goes forward.

From Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant on the city’s Southeast Side to the small river town of Belvidere near Rockford, where the union and the state hope to restart the idled Stellantis Jeep plant, the course of negotiations could dramatically shape the auto industry in Illinois for years to come.

Seeking pay increases, shorter workweeks and improvements to retiree pensions and health care plans amid record profits for the Big Three automakers, the UAW took the unprecedented action of striking against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis simultaneously after a four-year contract expired at midnight Thursday.

“This is uncharted territory, because they don’t strike all three, they typically strike one,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, a market research firm.

The UAW, which represents 146,000 members across the U.S., directed workers at a GM plant in Missouri, a Stellantis plant in Ohio and a Ford factory in Michigan to walk off the job and onto the picket line, calling for a strike against all three manufacturers for the first time in the Detroit-based union’s 88-year history.

At the Chicago Ford plant, which has about 5,500 workers on three shifts making the Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator and Police Interceptor SUVs, local union leadership was at the ready Thursday night, if the call from Detroit had come down.

“I had my finger on the button to activate our strike committee,” said Chris Pena, president of UAW Local 551.

Ford also employs about 1,000 hourly workers at a nearby stamping plant in Chicago Heights who are members of UAW Local 588.

In 2019, Ford spent $1 billion to transform the nearly century-old Torrence Avenue facility, which phased out production of the Taurus sedan to focus on building SUVs. The Explorer, which is made exclusively at the Chicago Assembly Plant, is among Ford’s best-selling vehicles.

While Ford has seen robust profits in the wake of the pandemic — the automaker had a net income of nearly $3.7 billion on $86 billion in revenue during the first six months of 2023, according to the company’s most recent earnings report — workers have had a rougher ride, Pena said, citing everything from COVID-related fatalities to stagnant compensation since making concessions during the Great Recession.

“We’re ready to go to get what we feel is owed to us, and that’s better wages, a cost-of-living allowance and pensions for all,” Pena said. “We feel we’re owed that when we see billion-dollar profits quarterly thrown into our face after they keep taking from us. And we’re the ones making those profits happen.”

A Ford spokesperson did not respond to questions about the strike or the potential impact on its Chicago operations.

UAW Local 551 plans to meet Sunday afternoon at its union hall to discuss the strike and possible next steps, Pena said.

Ideas on the table include solidarity rallies, social media campaigns and other efforts to generate public support for the broader strike. More than anything, the Chicago Assembly workers will be on standby for a call to be the next plant to strike, if needed, Pena said.

There could be more riding on the outcome of the strike in Belvidere, where Stellantis “indefinitely” idled the 60-year-old auto plant and laid off its last 1,200 union workers in February after halting production of the Jeep Cherokee amid dwindling sales. Production of the next-generation Cherokee is reportedly shifting to the Stellantis plant in Toluca, Mexico.

Stellantis bypassed Belvidere when it announced last year it would produce its next-generation Charger and Challenger EVs in Windsor, Ontario, where it is also building a $5 billion battery plant.

But Gov J.B. Pritzker hasn’t given up hope on convincing Stellantis to stay in Belvidere, offering the company significant incentives to reopen the plant.

While Stellantis could use Belvidere as a bargaining chip in the negotiations by agreeing to put a product back in the plant, it hasn’t risen to the top of the list for the UAW President Shawn Fain thus far, according to industry analyst Fiorani.

“It has been very quiet,” Fiorani said. “The idea of them moving a product in there is never off the table when it comes to negotiating with the union. But I really haven’t heard him call out Belvidere specifically.”

Rich Boyer, vice president and head of the UAW’s Stellantis department, and representatives of UAW Local 1268 in Belvidere, did not respond to requests for comment.

Fiorani said concurrent negotiations between the Big Three and Unifor, the union representing Canadian autoworkers, makes it unlikely Stellantis will reverse its decision to build EVs in Windsor instead of Belvidere. A more likely solution might involve any number of vehicles being built in Mexico, he said.

However, if that vehicle is not an EV, it would be a short-term fix at best, Fiorani said.

Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson declined to comment on plans for the Belvidere plant.

The state’s toolbox includes the Invest in Illinois Act, which created a $400 million “closing fund” to incentivize EV manufacturers and other businesses to locate, expand or remain in the state through favorable financing. The 2021 Reimagining Electric Vehicles in Illinois Act incentivizes EV manufacturers to locate in the state through tax credits, including a December amendment upping the incentive to 75% of state income tax for automakers that retain employees as they transition to EV production.

If Stellantis doesn’t come through, Illinois is exploring other options — including foreign EV manufacturers — to fill the void. In July, Pritzker led a delegation to the United Kingdom seeking to sell the state as a destination for EV manufacturing. Sources familiar with the mission said the effort may bear fruit.

The state also recently optioned a large parcel of land next to the Belvidere plant to entice manufacturers to consider the site.

“We think that there’s an opportunity to bring more companies in, particularly large manufacturers,” said Dan Seals, CEO of Intersect Illinois, the state’s public-private economic development arm. “The reason for securing a parcel like that would be to make it easier for that to happen.”

Seals said the best possible outcome would be for Stellantis to move back into the plant. But as time goes on, the skilled workforce that built Jeep Cherokees begins to move on, seeking new jobs and making it more challenging for the automaker to turn the lights back on, he said.

If Stellantis doesn’t reopen the plant, the state is likewise prepared to move on and has already received a number of inquiries about the Belvidere site, Seals said.

The last UAW strike in 2019 against GM lasted 40 days, trickling down to parts suppliers. With reduced inventory in the wake of the pandemic, ongoing supply chain disruptions and a potentially protracted and widening strike against all three automakers, the economic fallout could be significantly worse this time around, Fiorani said.

Smaller parts suppliers could be forced out of business by a long strike, Fiorani said. Dealerships and customers, meanwhile, will need to navigate an average inventory supply of about 40 days — better than the pandemic lows, but far below pre-pandemic levels. If the strike lasts longer than 40 days, the new car inventory supply likely will be depleted, he said.

As a consequence, that would mean higher prices for both new and used cars for consumers.

Scott Kunes, COO of Kunes Auto and RV Group, a family-owned, Wisconsin-based dealership group with more than 40 stores across the Midwest, including seven in northern Illinois, said they have stocked up as much as possible on new and used cars in anticipation of the strike.

But it is far from an old school car dealer sales pitch to say the inventory won’t last long.

“If this is a prolonged strike, it could have pretty dire consequences to our inventory supply,” Kunes said.

Like the semiconductor shortage, Kunes said his dealerships will turn to used cars when new cars aren’t available. But the supply of late-model used cars is somewhat depleted by lower new car inventories.

Kunes said his dealerships are taking strike production disruption into account in setting the prices on the current inventory of new and used cars.

“We don’t have a strike fund that can pay employees if our shelves are empty,” Kunes said. “So we’ll turn to the used car market, and that is going to force used car prices to rise again. New car prices will go up as well. We’ve already begun to look at some of the models that we know are the most constrained.”

One beneficiary of the strike may be electric truck manufacturer Rivian, which is a nonunion shop.

Rivian launched production in September 2021 and now has about 7,000 employees building electric pickup trucks, SUVs and Amazon delivery vans in a formerly vacant, 3.3 million-square-foot auto plant in downstate Normal.

The EV automaker, which has struggled to ramp up production amid supply chain disruption, recently raised its 2023 annual target to 52,000 vehicles. In addition to gaining production traction, Rivian opened its first showroom in Chicago last week.

Production remains at full throttle and the year-end target is unchanged. A Rivian spokesperson declined to comment on the UAW strike Friday.

For Ford’s Chicago plant, Friday was “business as usual” for workers on the assembly line, Pena said. But operating on an expired contract, with brethren striking in three other states, the plant’s 5,500 union employees are keeping a close eye on negotiations and remaining on standby, he said.

“No one wants to strike,” Pena said. “But we are ready, if it comes down to it. And we know that sacrifices are going to be made, and the only power we have is to hurt the company and their profits, because that’s when they start to listen.”

rchannick@chicagotribune.com