“I want­ed to become a mechan­ic, and we’ll see if every­thing works out,” says Rosas. ​“If not, I’m gonna have to change careers.”

Rafael Rosas, 23, has been work­ing at the Nis­san deal­er­ship in Evanston, Ill, for three years. He was pro­mot­ed from lube-tech­ni­cian to appren­tice last year and now makes a lit­tle under $20 an hour. Before he can become a jour­ney­man, or full-fledged mechan­ic, his employ­er must agree to pro­mote him — a process that can take up to 8 years. Rosas says he can’t wait that long; if the union fails at the nego­ti­a­tion table, he’s going to leave the indus­try for plumb­ing or anoth­er more lucra­tive trade in order to keep up with rent, bills and stu­dent loan payments.

The cost of car repairs might make your heart sink, but Chica­go-area mechan­ics say they don’t get a fair deal from deal­er­ships, either. On August 1, the near­ly 2,000 mem­bers of Auto Mechan­ics Union Local 701 vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to strike after reject­ing a con­tract at the end of July. If the strike doesn’t pro­duce the con­tract the union wants, many young mechan­ics could be fac­ing tough deci­sions about their future.

Bet­ter wages and faster pro­mo­tion for appren­tices are among the strik­ers’ top demands. Aspir­ing auto

mechan­ics might spend two or three years as a lube-tech­ni­cian before even being offered an appren­tice­ship, says Elion Seitl­lari, an Auto­mo­tive Instruc­tor at Tru­man Col­lege in Chica­go. Those posi­tions gen­er­al­ly pay under $20 an hour, and aspir­ing mechan­ics may also spend thou­sands of dol­lars to buy their own tools, which is effec­tive­ly a require­ment in the industry.

The union wants to cut to five years the time that employ­ers can keep appren­tices before pro­mot­ing them. As the strike entered its fourth week, the union sent a new con­tract pro­pos­al Tues­day evening to the New Car Deal­ers Com­mit­tee, which is rep­re­sent­ing 140 or so local deal­er­ships in the nego­ti­a­tions. Both sides are expect­ed to return to the nego­ti­a­tion table in the com­ing days. The union vot­ed to reject a pro­posed con­tract ear­li­er in the month, say­ing it met very few of their demands.

“It’s not even about what’s right at this point,” says Chris­t­ian Walk­er, head tech­ni­cian at North­side Toy­ota in Chica­go. ​“Seems like a bat­tle of ego: ​‘How dare us peas­ants chal­lenge you.’”

Local 701 is the largest mechan­ics union in the coun­try. It’s part of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Machin­ists (IAM) and Aero­space Work­ers, which orig­i­nal­ly formed in 1888 and began orga­niz­ing auto mechan­ics in the 1920s.

On Wednes­day, IAM Inter­na­tion­al Pres­i­dent Bob Mar­tinez vis­it­ed strik­ers out­side the Cadil­lac of Naperville in Chicago’s west­ern sub­urbs. Accord­ing to a report by CBS Chica­go, the sub­ur­ban deal­er­ship recent­ly instruct­ed strik­ing tech­ni­cians to remove their tool­box­es from the premis­es and threat­ened to hire replacements.

“We’re sick and tired of their bull­shit and we deserve what we’re owed,” Mar­tinez told a crowd of about 50, who had assem­bled next to an icon­ic inflat­able rat bal­loon used by unions to shame unfair employ­ers. Mar­tinez told In These Times that said the mechan­ics’ strike high­lights the impor­tance of sol­i­dar­i­ty, say­ing that it would ​“ben­e­fit both union and non-union work­ers” by improv­ing con­di­tions indus­try-wide. About 45 per­cent of Chica­go auto mechan­ics are union­ized, accord­ing to IAM.

Nation­al­ly, the indus­try is fac­ing an auto mechan­ic short­age. One esti­mate pre­dicts there will be more than 25,000 unfilled posi­tions in the next five years, accord­ing the New York Times. Experts wor­ry there aren’t even enough train­ing facil­i­ties to meet the demand in time. Cars are more sophis­ti­cat­ed than ever, mean­ing mechan­ics need train­ing in tra­di­tion­al auto repairs, as well as com­put­er and elec­tri­cal repair. Voca­tion­al work isn’t pop­u­lar to begin with, and work­ing as a plumber or elec­tri­cian is often more prof­itable than try­ing to break into auto­mo­tive service.

Local 701 believes their rec­om­mend­ed changes will entice new tal­ent. But Dave Radelet, lead nego­tia­tor for the NCDC, insists that the union’s demands aren’t fea­si­ble. He acknowl­edges that a typ­i­cal deal­er­ship charges cus­tomers $100 or more for an hour of ser­vice, while union tech­ni­cians usu­al­ly make around $30 an hour. But the dif­fer­ence goes toward expens­es and employ­ee ben­e­fits, he says. As for the young work­ers stuck wait­ing for a pro­mo­tion, Radelet said they should leave for anoth­er deal­er­ship and nego­ti­ate a high­er job title with bet­ter pay.

Anoth­er key demand from the union is a 40-hour a week guar­an­tee for jour­ney­men, up from the 34 their

con­tract cur­rent­ly ensures. The NCDC reports that 70 per­cent of tech­ni­cians book 40 hours or more through work­ing addi­tion­al repair jobs, but the union feels this arrange­ment leaves work­ers vul­ner­a­ble to slow weeks where there isn’t enough work com­ing in. Addi­tion­al­ly, low repair times for war­ran­ty fix­es can lead to unpaid work: per indus­try stan­dards for new-car deal­er­ships, mechan­ics are only paid for the time man­u­fac­tur­ers state a giv­en job should take, and both the union and NCDC agree these times have dropped in recent years. If a mechan­ic needs four hours to fin­ish a job that’s list­ed to only take two, they are only paid for half that work time (Radelet says this is a ​“very rare sit­u­a­tion,” but sev­er­al mechan­ics told In These Times that jobs often take longer than the list­ed repair time).

Marc Osberg, a mechan­ic at the Evanston Nis­san shop, says that his annu­al pay has fall­en from $80,000 in 2007 to less than $60,000 today, thanks to a drop in his paid hours. He filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this year, after his wife’s ill­ness and even­tu­al death pushed him into debt.

“It’s almost like los­ing a part-time job the way we’ve been get­ting paid,” he says.

There’s no word yet on exact­ly when both sides will return to the nego­ti­at­ing table or have a new con­tract to vote on. But this strike, says Chris­t­ian Walk­er, shows exact­ly what hap­pens when you don’t have enough mechan­ics in the shop.

“The guys who are treat­ed the worst and ignored the most overnight shut down 140 mul­ti-mil­lion- dollar

busi­ness­es,” he says. ​“You can take any­one else from this equa­tion and this will still oper­ate. You take us out? Done.”