WENTZVILLE, Mo. — When the polls closed Thursday evening in Wentzville, General Motors workers waited to see if the UAW Local 2250 chapter had approved the new contract, a move that could end their 39-day strike.
On Thursday night, local UAW workers voted to approve the new GM contract by a wide margin.
Workers were following the results closely, but they certainly aren't the only ones.
So many companies in the area have been indirectly affected by the strike.
GM workers held the picket line Thursday under a cold, slow rain. They kept warm with a fire, UAW sweatshirts on their back.
The same logo flies at local businesses like Lear, which makes seats for the GM vehicles. The same can be said of neighboring Faurecia.
Both companies employ UAW workers, and so many of the workers are idle as the strike continues.
"I was talking to a guy the other day. He said he was doing a tour at one of the facilities here in Wentzville, and he was walking into spiderwebs because there is no activity," Mayor Nick Guccione said.
Guccione said city hall's keeping an eye on sales tax revenue. Numbers aren't in, but they're seeing an effect.
"Driving around the community, I see less and less vehicles in some of the restaurants and in some of the shopping centers," Guccione said. "We have a lot of people that live in Wentzville that work for GM."
This strike's certainly been hard on workers who first went without income, then collecting strike pay -- $250 a week until the figure was bumped to $275 a week.
Local workers voted to approve the contract, but they still have to wait for results from across the country to see if the contract will be approved. Those votes could come in as late as Saturday.
If approved, the GM contract would come with a big investment: $1.5 billion from General Motors.
With so much on the line, interest extends beyond the picket line.
Almost everyone in Wentzville's waiting for the results.
