As the United Auto Workers Union enters their fourth day on strike, many businesses across the country are feeling the pressure, just as General Motors is. We reached out to Sachin Shivaram, the CEO of Manitowoc based Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, and he informed us that GM is one of their largest single customers on the books, accounting for 5% of their total sales. WAF makes rotor casings for the automobile giant.
Shivaram explained that “We have dedicated people working on their products, so we will need to rearrange our work schedules if the strike is prolonged. That said, this is not going to cause us to lay people off or change our business strategy.”
The effect continues to change as the days continue, as when we first spoke with Shivaram on Monday, he told us that it wasn’t going to be a big blow to the company. Then yesterday morning he told us “they are canceling orders that were due” on that day.
Also on Monday, WAF was visited by one of their suppliers from Escanaba, Michigan who according to Shivaram told them that “if we see a slowdown in demand, they will too. These things ripple.”
We have also reached out to several other local manufacturers to see how they have been affected by the strike.
