It’s a gray, damp morning on High Avenue in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where since March 18, 2025, roughly 90 members of UAW Local 291 have turned the sidewalk into a picket line. They’re not here for glory or headlines – just a living wage, healthcare that doesn’t drain their savings, a steady schedule, and weekends that aren’t swallowed by mandatory overtime. These are the welders and machinists bolting axles for Cummins Inc.’s Drivetrain & Braking Systems plant – parts that keep heavy-duty trucks and military rigs rolling. When their contract expired on January 29, 2025 (¹), and negotiations stalled after just one meeting, they walked out. Nearly two months later, they’re still soaked and stubborn, their signs spelling out the truth the boardroom refuses to hear.
This isn’t some faceless labor dispute. It’s etched into the lines of calloused hands and the weary eyes of people who’ve spent years building the engines that bear Cummins’ name. They’re demanding pay that keeps pace with inflation—currently running at 3.4% in the U.S. (²)—healthcare that doesn’t force impossible choices, and job security in a plant where temporary workers now outnumber full-timers. Simple asks, really. Yet for UAW Local 291 President Ryan Compton, Cummins has been tone-deaf: “They talk about work-life balance, then they take our Saturdays like it’s nothing,” he says (³). And when you’re standing in the mud, sign in hand, that disconnect stings deeper than any spreadsheet.
Cummins isn’t your average employer; it’s an industrial behemoth with a $34 billion revenue stream (⁴) and a glossy sustainability pitch -hydrogen engines here, battery storage there -that makes Wall Street nod along. But last year they coughed up $1.675 billion to settle U.S. diesel emissions charges (⁵), all while insisting on no admission of fault. Now this strike is peeling back the corporate veneer. Oshkosh isn’t a backwater shop; it’s a linchpin in Cummins’ global supply chain. Every missed shift snarls production, pushes deadlines, and digs a deeper chasm between the company’s “prosperity for all” slogan and the reality on High Avenue.
The next tentative meeting is slated for May 28–29, 2025 (³)—two dates that feel more like milestones of endurance than bargaining sessions. Meanwhile, banners flutter outside a company touting community care. It’s an optics disaster: Cummins preaching “powering a better world” while its own workforce gets stuck in potholes of poverty and frustration.
This standoff is more than local news; it’s a canary in the coal mine for every Cummins site, from Columbus to Rocky Mount to Darlington. Get this right, and perhaps goodwill trickles back in. Drag it out or double-down on stonewalling, and the cracks will spread – union solidarity hardening into something uglier. As May 28 nears, Cummins faces a choice: back up the rhetoric with real action or let the picket line become a permanent scar on its reputation.
For the roughly 90 souls on High Avenue, it’s never been about winning a headline. It’s about being seen, being heard, and being respected. And as the rain falls on their stubborn line, one thing’s clear: the rain keeps falling, and the world’s watching Cummins’ next move.
Lee Thompson
Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- UAW Local 291 press release, March 18, 2025
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2025 CPI report
- Oshkosh Northwestern, “Strike Talks Rescheduled,” May 1, 2025
- Cummins Inc. 2024 Annual Report (NYSE:CMI)
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency press release, March 2024 settlement
No corporate spin, no hollow promises—just the truth from the shop floor.