The autoworkers’ national strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers has entered its second week, and is expected to draw even more national attention with visits from President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump in the coming days.

The United Auto Workers union decided last week to expand its strike at three facilities to include 38 additional parts and distribution centers throughout the U.S. Using a targeted strike approach, the union is hoping to leverage strikes in an effort to accelerate the negotiations with General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company that began in July.

The union has not reached a deal with any of the automakers as of Monday. Here’s a breakdown of what to know this week.

Auto strike grows

About 18,600 of the UAW’s 146,000 autoworkers were striking this week after union President Shawn Fain decided to expand the strike from three facilities to 41 total.

The union initially launched its first-ever simultaneous strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis on Sept. 15 after both sides failed to reach an agreement by their Sept. 14 contract deadline. At that time, about 13,000 workers were asked to strike at three facilities, one for each company: the GM Wentzville Assembly, the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex, and the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant (final assembly and paint only).

The union and the automakers agreed to resume talks the weekend after the strike began, and continued negotiating all last week. Though talks were progressing, Fain had imposed a deadline of noon Friday on the automakers, threatening to expand the strike if the bargaining didn’t make “serious progress” by then.

At 10 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 22, the UAW president announced that the strike would expand to include dozens of GM and Stellantis parts and distribution centers, claiming talks with the two companies hadn’t been going well. Fain said the union did make “real progress” in its talks with Ford, which wasn’t included in the strike expansion.

A list of the affected facilities can be found here, or check out the map down below.

As of Monday, Sept. 25, the union had not publicly announced a new deadline for the automakers — but it is possible that carmakers, particularly GM and Stellantis, could face another union-imposed deadline soon. The union is taking a targeted approach to this year’s auto strike, with plans of adding more workers and facilities to the strike as it deems necessary.

UAW President Fain often shares such information in social media updates for union members. As of Monday, it was unknown when Fain would address the members next.

Negotiations were expected to continue this week between the UAW and each of the Big Three. While talks with Ford made more progress than the others, the union still had some “serious issues” to work through with Ford, Fain said.

Each of the Big Three have made counter offers to the union’s demands, but the UAW has not yet reached a deal with any of the companies.

The UAW is seeking job security for its members in addition to a long list of aggressive demands that include a 36% wage increase, an end to wage tiers, pension restoration, cost of living adjustments, and more. Workers are particularly concerned about what the EV shift will mean for their futures, since fewer workers are required to make those vehicles — though EV workers require more thorough training.

Elsewhere, Canadian autoworkers represented by the Unifor union have reached a deal with Ford, which was identified as the union’s target for negotiations this year. Unifor members voted to ratify the deal with Ford that includes wage raises, restoration of the cost of living allowance, and more.

President Biden to visit Tuesday

In an unprecedented move, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to visit Michigan on Tuesday, Sept. 26 to speak with striking UAW workers. When the announcement was made Friday, it was still unclear if Biden would visit the actual picket lines.

Still, U.S. presidents don’t have much of a history of visiting active picket lines, or showing more support for labor workers than the industry itself. Biden has walked a fine line on the autoworker vs. automaker issue, though he has shown a bit more sympathy for the laborers.

The president has recently been working with companies like the Big Three to help support and encourage a massive transition to electric vehicle production. EVs fall under the Biden administration’s efforts to shift toward clean energy initiatives.

Biden has also been establishing himself as a pro-union leader, and has shared the UAW’s sentiment that automakers’ recent “record profits” should translate to “record contracts” with better pay and benefits for workers. If Biden visits active picket lines this week, it will be one of the only times, if not the only time, a sitting president has done so amid a labor strike.

The president’s itinerary for Tuesday was still unknown as of Monday morning.

Two of Biden’s top aides were asked to come to Detroit to help out with negotiations wherever they were needed. Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior aide Gene Sperling were initially expected to arrive in the Motor City last week, but changed their plans and are instead expected sometime this week.

Trump to visit Wednesday

Donald Trump, former president and current Republican presidential frontrunner for 2024, is also expected to visit Michigan this week to meet with striking autoworkers. The UAW president, however, doesn’t appear enthusiastic about Trump’s visit, and completely dismissed Trump’s attempts to appear sympathetic to the union’s situation.

Trump was scheduled to visit Michigan on Wednesday, Sept. 27, though his exact itinerary was also unknown as of Monday. He is expected to deliver a speech at some point.

The former president’s visit comes as Trump zones in on the UAW’s auto strike in an effort to appear supportive of the union’s actions and demands. According to reports, the former president will skip the second GOP debate on Wednesday to instead visit Michigan.

In light of the expected visit, UAW President Fain — who previously said a second Trump presidency would be a “disaster” — essentially denounced Trump’s efforts, saying he is part of a class of people who benefit from the conditions autoworkers are fighting against.

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” Fain said. “We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”

The former president has long sought to establish himself as a leader for the working class, and even spent a significant amount of time in the Rust Belt during his 2016 campaign. With the UAW at odds with GM, Stellantis and Ford, Trump has been accusing Biden, his successor, of trying to ruin the car industry through his EV push.

A campaign spokesperson for Biden, who is running for office again in 2024, argued last week that Trump doesn’t care about autoworkers and would have let the Big Three go bankrupt from the 2008 financial crisis rather than bail them out.

“Donald Trump is going to Michigan next week to lie to Michigan workers and pretend he didn’t spend his entire failed presidency selling them out at every turn. Instead of standing with workers, Trump cut taxes for the super-wealthy while auto companies shuttered their doors and shipped American jobs overseas,” spokesperson Ammar Moussa said.

Read more: Trump says he always had autoworkers’ backs. Union leaders say his first-term record shows otherwise

Auto strike expansion map

Below, you’ll find a map of the 41 Big Three facilities where UAW workers were striking as of Monday.

The following GM facilities were added to the UAW strike on Friday, Sept. 22:

• Davidson Road Processing Center

• Flint Processing Center

• Lansing Redistribution

• Pontiac Redistribution

• Willow Run Redistribution

• Ypsilanti Processing Center

• Chicago Parts Distribution

• Cincinnati Parts Distribution

• Hudson, Wisconsin Parts Distribution

• Denver Parts Distribution

• Reno Parts Distribution Center

• Rancho Cucamonga Parts Distribution

• Fort Worth Parts Distribution

• Martinsburg, West Virginia Parts Distribution

• Jackson, Mississippi Parts Distribution

• Charlotte, North Carolina Parts Distribution

• Memphis AC Delco Parts Distribution

• Philadelphia Parts Distribution

The following Stellantis facilities were added to the UAW strike on Friday, Sept. 22:

• Centerline Packaging

• Centerline Warehouse

• Marysville

• Sherwood (Warren)

• Warren Parts

• Quality Engineering Center (Auburn Hills)

• Romulus

• Chicago

• Cleveland

• Milwaukee

• Minneapolis

• Denver

• Los Angeles

• Portland, Oregon

• Atlanta

• Winchester, Virginia

• Orlando

• Dallas

• New York

• Boston

More coverage of the 2023 UAW strike can be found here