Union members are still off the job at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Southwest Detroit. More than 250 members of Teamsters Local 283 have been on the picket line for seven weeks as they seek a fair contract.

With the strike ongoing, the Marathon refinery is using out-of-state workers to operate. Despite that, Michigan regulators just approved the facility to increase production. 

Gina Jones is a lab technician at the refinery. She says temp workers might not fully understand how to operate the plant.

“Yeah, you can bring scabs in,” says Jones, “but each refinery has its own little quirks. Unless you’ve been around for a while – and you know how to work with those quirks – somebody who comes in fresh, they’re not going to know.”

As a result, nearby residents and striking workers, like Jones, have safety concerns.

“(Refinery) startup is one of the most dangerous times,” Jones said. “Whenever you shut down or start up a refinery, that’s when accidents can happen.”

Workers are looking for stronger union protections, such as requiring new hires to join the Teamsters. They’re also asking for pay increases that outpace inflation.

However, union members say there have been no negotiations in weeks. That’s despite the presence of a federal mediator.

“They came to us saying, ‘we’ll give you a 2% increase,’” says Jones of prior negotiations. “And that’s laughable.”

Marathon Petroleum is set put out it’s third-quarter earnings in early November.

In the second quarter of this year, the oil giant made $1.52 billion.

**Editors Note**

After this story published, a Marathon Petroleum spokesperson wanted to reiterate:

• All employees in operations roles at the refinery have demonstrated competency specific to their assigned job tasks, including passing all required tests.
• The Marathon employees currently running the refinery and supporting the turnaround have a combined average of more than 15 years of experience each, which is more than the average experience of the employees currently on strike.

Republican former Congressman Fred Upton is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Upton served Southwest Michigan in Congress for 36 years.

“I’ve never before voted for a Democrat for president,” Upton said. “I honestly never thought I would, but she’s a strong, committed public servant.”

Upton says he did vote for longtime Democratic U.S. Senator Carl Levin.

According to Upton, politics changed in 2016 once Trump came onto the scene.

“There have always been impassioned fights about policy, but with Trump in charge, politics was more personal, more angry and more divided than ever before,” Upton said.

Upton is unequivocal in his distaste for the former president.

“Instead of focusing on making people’s lives better, Trump is leveling personal attacks, spreading more election lies, and engaging in some of the most unstable and unhinged behavior that we’ve ever seen from a presidential candidate,” Upton said.

The former Congressman voted to impeach Trump following the attack on the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — something that drew the ire of the former President. Trump celebrated Upton’s retirement announcement in 2022.

GOP Former Michigan Congressman Dave Trott has also endorsed Harris.

As for Michigan’s tight U.S. Senate race, Upton has not made an endorsement, but did say that he donated to Republican candidate and Trump-ally Mike Rogers.

However, Upton says he considers both Rogers and Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin friends.

The general election is taking place on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. For the latest election information, visit WDET’s Voter Guide at wdet.org/voterguide.

Read more:

• Michigan Senate candidates have similar backgrounds, different agendas
• Harris, Cheney message to conservative voters in Royal Oak
• Metro Detroiters lay out the issues and candidates shaping their vote

Coming into 2024, Democrats already had an uphill climb in their attempt to keep control of the U.S. Senate.

A climb that got steeper when Michigan U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced she would not be seeking reelection.

Now, Republican Mike Rogers and Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin are vying for the seat. 

Quick facts

Mike Rogers:

• Served in the U.S. Army
• Spent five years as an FBI Agent
• Served in the Michigan Senate for six years 
• Seven-term U.S Congressman, including four years as chair of the House Intelligence Committee

Elissa Slotkin:

• Served three tours in Iraq as an intelligence analyst for the CIA
• Fluent in Arabic and Swahili
• Worked in intelligence for both the Bush and Obama administrations
• Left the Department of Defense in 2017 and has served in the U.S. House since 2019

With their backgrounds in intelligence, both candidates are keeping an eye on Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.

“Israel has, again, the right to respond to that.” Slotkin said. “But for me, what I won’t do is I won’t say that the United States should get back into a big land war in the Middle East.”

Rogers says Iran is the main problem. 

“So if we don’t contain Tehran, I’m telling you what, we’ll have more trouble,” Rogers said. “We’ll be more engulfed in the Middle East.”

Something else that’s national security adjacent — Rogers has expressed concern about a battery plant, owned by a Chinese company, being built near Big Rapids. Slotkin doesn’t like it either.

“Not only do I share [the same concerns], I’ve legislated on them. I mean the bill in Congress, a bipartisan bill to ban China from buying our farmland, is my bill,” she said. “The bill in Congress that allows us to ban Chinese companies and also other companies of countries of concern from buying our manufacturing sites. That’s my bill.”

Rogers however goes a bit further accusing Slotkin of working with Chinese officials.

“She signed a non-disclosure agreement to facilitate a Chinese Communist Party company going up near Big Rapids,” Rogers said.

The NDA Slotkin signed was with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. She did so with a few other Democrats and seven Republicans. But the Gotion Plant Rogers is referring to isn’t listed on the agreement.

Rogers maintains he does want to create more opportunities for factory jobs.

“Since my opponent has been elected, we have lost in this state, 29,000 manufacturing jobs. I worked in an assembly plant in Michigan,” Rogers said. “These jobs are critical.”

It should be noted those job losses came during the Trump Administration. The former President has endorsed Rogers for Senate.

Earlier this year, Trump had Congressional Republicans scuttle a bipartisan immigration bill because he wanted to use the issue as a wedge during his Presidential campaign. Rogers says it was a bad bill anyway.

“You can’t make legal two million illegal immigrants every single year. Look at the crime. Look at the problems that it creates. That was not a bill to solve the problem,” Rogers said. “It was a bill to exasperate and make permanent the problem. It was really a disaster of a bill.”

Crime has been going down, and studies show immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S. citizens.

Slotkin says a well-funded system for immigration is good for the economy.

“We need legal, vetted immigration. Our farmers need it. Our folks in Mackinac need it for their hotels and their fudge shops,” Slotkin said. “Until we get our immigration system right, we’re going to have a big problem at the border.”

That’s right in-line with her priorities.

“I focus on policies that are about pro-good jobs and then lowering the cost of things like prescription drugs, health care, you know, post secondary education, child care,” said Slotkin.

Rogers has been campaigning a lot in Detroit. He says Black voters are coming around to the message of the GOP.

“What they’re finding out we’re not bad people,” Rogers said. “We actually have unique solutions for their problems, including literacy, including criminal justice reform, including block grants that actually go to communities versus what’s been happening over the years is going, they pour money into the top of the funnel in these cities, and it doesn’t quite get to the people who need it most.”

Michigan voters put abortion rights into the state constitution two years ago. However, the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade precedent by the U.S. Supreme Court keeps the issue top of mind.

Mike Rogers says it’s a settled issue and claims he wouldn’t vote for a nationwide abortion ban. However, that’s in conflict with his past statements of being against abortion except in instances to save the life of a mother.

Elissa Slotkin supports nationwide reproductive rights.

The general election is taking place on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Five third party candidates will also be on the ballot for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, including Douglas Marsh (Green Party), Joseph Solis-Mullen (Libertarian), Doug Dern (Natural Law Party), Dave Stein (U.S. Taxpayers Party), and James Frizzell (Independent).

For the latest election information, visit WDET’s Voter Guide at wdet.org/voterguide.

In the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, former Congressman and FBI agent Mike Rogers easily won his primary. The Republican was aided by a combination of name recognition, lots of campaign cash, and an endorsement from former President Trump.

Rogers has recently picked up some key endorsements, including from the Michigan Farm Bureau.

AgriPac — the Michigan Farm Bureau’s political action committee — had previously supported retiring Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Stabenow.

Rogers was in Detroit last week for a roundtable with Black clergy.

During the event, Rogers told an anecdote of a Michigan family who was having a hard time making ends meet despite having two incomes.

Rogers attributes the problem to both the inflated price of goods and the fact that people aren’t getting paid enough, despite working full time.

“Part of the problem was when [the Biden Administration] funneled cash into the U.S. economy,” he said. “You got so much cash, so few goods, it just drove all the costs up.”

Two rounds of pandemic-era stimulus checks went out during the Trump Administration, before a third set of checks were given out as part of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act.

However ARPA did pump a lot of federal dollars into municipalities for public works projects. Economists generally agree the stimulus money staved off a recession, but it did fuel a meteoric rise in inflation.

Rogers has been hitting the campaign trail all over the state of Michigan, including multiple stops in Detroit. He says it’s making a difference with Black voters.

“Democrats tell them you can’t vote for the other team because they’re bad people,” Rogers says. “And what they’re finding out is we’re not bad people.”

“We actually have unique solutions for their problems, including literacy, including criminal justice reform, including block grants that actually go to communities.”

Immigration has been a hot topic throughout this election cycle.

Lately, former President Donald Trump and GOP Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance have been using racist tropes to attack Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. The lies about immigrants eating pets and stealing jobs have led to bomb threats and have further widened political divisions in the area.

That’s not something that concerns Rogers.

“These campaigns are full of really bad things that people say over on both sides of the aisle,” Rogers says.

He says the Black faith leaders aren’t concerned with the rhetoric coming from the Trump-Vance campaign.

“These people aren’t listening to that,” Rogers said.

“You know what they’re listening to: How can you help me with criminal justice reform? How can you make my groceries less expensive? How can you make my gas bill [go] down? So I’m not playing that game where we parse words that happened at a rally somewhere. I’m not doing it,” he said.

Rogers is facing Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin in the general election.

The United Auto Workers plans to hold strike authorization votes at as many as 28 Stellantis local chapters in the next couple weeks.

Stellantis has rolled back a planned restart of production at a Jeep factory in Belvidere, Illinois. The commitment — which the union said it won in last year’s contract — was also supposed to include an auto parts hub and a new battery plant.

The UAW has also filed unfair labor practice charges against the automaker with the National Labor Relations Board.

The union says Stellantis has failed to keep workers updated on changes to product commitments. That includes shifting production of the Dodge Durango SUV from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario.

UAW workers launched a strike against all three automakers for six weeks during contract negotiations.

Union President Shawn Fain says automakers will be held accountable for violations of that contract.

““This is about enforcing a contract for all of us, we all sacrifice something to win these product and investment commitments,” Fain said in a video to members on Tuesday.

“We all — every plant — are at risk if the company can violate these agreements.”

In a statement, Stellantis says it doesn’t believe it has violated any part of the agreement.

“The commitments we made during 2023 negotiations span the life of the four-year, 7.5-month agreement, so it is not surprising that they haven’t been fully realized in the first year. And to be clear, Shawn Fain’s claim that the company has confirmed plans for the Dodge Durango is simply not true.”

The conflict with the UAW comes at a tumultuous time for the automaker, which builds Jeeps, Ram pickups, Chryslers and others.

Last week, the Stellantis National Dealer Council sent an open letter to CEO Carlos Tavares criticizing the automaker for degradation of the company’s brands.

After record profits last year, sales in 2024 have been sluggish. Though the automaker took “exception” to the letter and says sales improved over the summer.

The Dealer Council and the UAW agree there are issues with Stellantis leadership.

“We aren’t the problem. The market isn’t the problem. Carlos Tavares is the problem,” Fain said.

Read more: 

• Fain, UAW rally in Warren after Stellantis announces mass layoffs at truck plant
• Looking back at the automotive labor movement in 2023
• UAW continues organizing efforts at non-union factories in the South