Fast Strike Against GM Breaks Years of Negotiating Precedent (1)

The United Automobile Workers union wasted no time in going to the picket lines.

Its contract with General Motors Co. expired Sept. 14, and within 48 hours—at 11:59 pm Sept. 15—the union’s more than 49,000 GM workers were on strike.

The decision by UAW leaders to call a strike so soon after a contract expires is a departure from decades of negotiating precedent between the UAW and Detroit’s three big auto manufacturers—GM, Ford Motor Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.

When the UAW last called a strike on GM in 2007, it took more than a week after ...