However, the reprieve for Western New York may be only brief, if the two sides can’t reach a deal.

About 13,000 U.S. auto workers stopped making vehicles and went on strike at three Midwest production plants Friday after their leaders couldn’t bridge a giant gap between union demands in contract talks and what Detroit’s three automakers are willing to pay.

Members of the United Auto Workers union began picketing at a General Motors Co. assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Ford Motor Co. factory in Wayne, Mich., near Detroit, and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio.

It was the first time in the union’s 88-year history that it walked out on all three companies simultaneously as four-year contracts with the companies expired at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

“Tonight, for the first time in our history, we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a Facebook Live address Thursday night, just before the deadline. “And if we need to go all out, we will. Everything is on the table.”

But even with the strike underway, it’s not clear whether the walkout will involve workers at any of the automakers’ plants in the Buffalo Niagara region.

That’s because the UAW isn’t planning a blanket strike at any of the automakers. Instead, it’s strategy is to stage selective strikes at targeted plants.

GM has an engine plant in the Town of Tonawanda and a components plant in Lockport. Ford has a stamped parts plant in Hamburg. The UAW represents about 3,000 workers across the three facilities.

There was no indication that the rest of the union would walk off the job yet – including those at the GM engine plant in Tonawanda, the GM components plant in Lockport, or the Ford Stamping Plant in Hamburg. The union said its strategy – called a “Stand Up” strike – will keep the automakers guessing and add pressure to negotiations.

That’s a big change from the union’s approach during previous negotiations. Instead of going after one company, led by its pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, the union is striking at all three at once in order to strengthen its bargaining position as it seeks to bolster worker pay and benefits, and restore years of lost pay raises and other concessions.

But not all of the 146,000 UAW members at company plants are walking picket lines, at least not yet.

Instead, the UAW targeted a handful of factories to prod company negotiators to raise their offers, which were far lower than union demands of 36% wage increases over four years. GM and Ford offered 20% and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, offered 17.5%.

“As time goes on, more locals may be called on to ‘Stand Up’ and join the strike. This gives us maximum leverage and maximum flexibility in our fight to win a fair contract at each of the Big Three automakers,” Fain said.

“This strategy will keep the companies guessing. It will give our national negotiators maximum leverage and flexibility in bargaining,” he said.

Unionized workers at plants not selected to be part of a strike would continue working under the terms of the expired agreements on Friday, the UAW said. Fain said “most of the contract is still in effect,” so “management cannot change the terms in the workplace” and “you cannot be fired or disciplined for no reason.”

Non-striking locals “will be ready to walk out at a moment’s notice, pending direction from national leadership,” the union said.

Industry observers say striking selected plants, rather than all of them at once, also helps the UAW preserve its $825 million strike fund. The UAW will pay striking workers $500 a week, with those payments becoming available on the eighth day of a walkout. The fund would also cover certain benefits, such as medical and prescription drugs. The UAW has about 146,000 members at the Detroit Three automakers. 

It also limits the economic hardship on a significant number of UAW members, who will be able to continue working – and collecting their regular paychecks – as the targeted walkouts at other facilities continue.

Even Fain has called the union’s demands audacious, but he maintains the automakers are raking in billions and can afford them. He scoffed at company statements that costly settlements would force them to raise vehicle prices, saying labor accounts for only 4% to 5% of vehicle costs.

“They could double our raises and not raise car prices and still make millions of dollars in profits,” Fain said. “We’re not the problem. Corporate greed is the problem.”

The strikes capped a day of both sides griping that the other had not budged enough from their initial positions.

In addition to general wage increases, the union is seeking restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, pension increases and medical benefits for retirees, and other items.

Starting in 2007, workers gave up cost-of-living raises and defined benefit pensions for new hires. Wage tiers were created as the UAW tried to help the companies avoid financial trouble ahead of and during the Great Recession. Even so, only Ford avoided government-funded bankruptcy protection.

By contrast, the UAW argues that the companies are now well in the black, with $21 billion of combined profits for just the first half of this year. And their CEO salaries reflect that.

“We’ve been working hard, trying to reach a deal for economic and social justice for our members,” Fain said. “We have been firm. We are committed to winning an agreement with the Big Three that reflects the incredible sacrifice and contributions that UAW members have made to these companies.”

The union is also seeking the right to strike over plant closings, noting that the three companies have shuttered 65 plants in the last two decades. It wants companies to have to pay UAW members to do community-service work if they shut down a plant. And it wants more paid time off for workers.

“We’ve been open. The companies, the members and the public know what we’ve been fighting for. And we’ve been clear,” Fain said. “We must show the world that our fight is a righteous fight.”

The Ford plant that’s on strike employs about 3,300 workers, and it makes Bronco SUVs and Ranger midsize pickup trucks. The Toledo Jeep complex has about 5,800 workers and manufactures the Jeep Wrangler SUV and Gladiator pickup. GM’s Wentzville plant has about 3,600 workers and makes the GMC Canyon and Chevrolet Colorado midsize pickups, as well as the GMC Savana and Chevrolet Express full-size vans.

The union didn’t go after the companies’ big cash cows, which are full-size pickup trucks and big SUVs, and went more for plants that make vehicles with lower profit margins, said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

“They want to give the companies some space without putting them up against the wall,” Masters said. “They’re not putting them right into the corner. You put an animal in the corner and it’s dangerous.”

GM CEO Mary Barra told workers in a letter Thursday that the company is offering historic wage increases and new vehicle commitments at U.S. factories. GM’s offer, she wrote, “addresses what you’ve told us is most important to you, in spite of the heated rhetoric from UAW leadership.”

On CNBC Thursday, Ford CEO Jim Farley said if Ford had agreed to the union’s demands, it would have lost $15 billion during the last decade and gone bankrupt.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.