As of noon Friday, one-fifth of UAW members are on strike.

UAW President Shawn Fain on Friday expanded the strike to two new facilities: Ford’s Chicago Assembly in Illinois and GM’s Delta Township Assembly in the Lansing area. About 7,000 people work at the two facilities, bringing the total number of strikers to 25,000, Fain said. That’s one in every five of the UAW’s 150,000 members.

The UAW’s strike started Sept. 15 at three facilities, each targeting one of the Big Three automakers: Stellantis’s Wentzville facility in Missouri, GM’s Toledo Assembly in Ohio, and Ford’s Michigan Assembly in Wayne.

Last week, when Fain expanded the strike to 38 parts distributorships, all of the closures affected GM and Stellantis, but Ford was spared.

“Sadly, Ford and GM have refused to make meaningful progress,” Fain said.

This week, the union is targeting Ford and GM facilities for strikes, while Stellantis was spared. Fain cited “significant progress” on a return of cost of living adjustments, and said he was “excited about this momentum” with that automaker.

Fain apologized for arriving late to his 10 a.m. Facebook Live appearance, citing a “flurry of interest” from automakers as the livestream was to begin.

He described strikers as the modern version of the “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II, when automakers cranked out military equipment for the American war effort.

“But this war isn’t against some foreign country,” Fain said. “The front lines are right here at home.”

Early in the livestream, Fain referenced President Joe Biden’s Tuesday visit to a Willow Run picket line.

“It was an historic day,” Fain said. “The most powerful man in the world showed up for one reason only: because our solidarity is the most powerful force in the world.”

Later Fain would downplay the effect Biden or even himself would have on negotiations.

“When we set a new course for future generations, it won't be because of any president,” Fain said. “Not the UAW president, not the President of the United States. It will be because ordinary people did extraordinary things.”

On Monday, Ford Motor Co. announced it was pausing construction on BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall. The next day, the Michigan Strategic Fund granted $65 million to an economic development group in Marshall for site preparation at the industrial site, a collaboration of Ford and a Chinese company called CATL. The CEO of that economic development group said he is confident the project will develop in time.

“We are aware of the current pause on work and we remain confident of the enormous potential of Ford’s BlueOval Battery Park project to create local opportunities and thousands of local jobs,” said Jim Durian, CEO of the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance, the recipient of the $65 million grant.

Durian added: “We hope current negotiations between Ford and the UAW conclude in a mutually beneficial manner and we remain confident this project will continue as planned once these negotiations are complete.”

With that statement, Durian became the third official to link Ford’s announcement to UAW negotiations, along with UAW President Shawn Fain and Quentin Messer Jr, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and chair of the fund.

Fain, the union head, called the Ford pause a shameful and barely veiled threat against striking workers. He said this even though it’s far from settled that the 2,500 jobs at BlueOval Battery Park would be union labor.

Before the board of the strategic fund approved the $65 million grant, Messer reassured colleagues that the show would go on.

“We fully expect that Ford will continue to develop (the) BlueOval Battery Park Michigan site and we need to allow the Ford Motor Co. and UAW to continue their negotiations,” Messer, chairman of the strategic fund and head of the MEDC, told the board Tuesday.

All told, the $3.5 billion project could have already received as much as $270 million in corporate welfare of the $1.7 billion pledged by lawmakers.