Some striking UAW members carry family legacies, Black middle-class future along with picket signs

Britney Johnson is among the thousands of Ford Motor Co. workers who went on strike to force the automaker to improve pay for all. But she carried more than a picket sign outside Ford's Wayne Assembly plant west of Detroit. Johnson carried a multigenerational legacy of well-paid union jobs, benefits and security that allowed her family to become part of the rising Black middle class. That meant home ownership, cars and vacations — all things that had been unattainable for many Blacks until they found work alongside whites in union factories in Detroit and other cities.