The graveyard shift began at midnight with a handful of sign-carrying UAW strikers walking slowly along East Huron Boulevard as their union leaders continue to try and negotiate a contract with Stellantis.

No security guards stood at the entrance of the National Parts Distribution Center in Marysville at this hour early Tuesday morning. No bus with tinted windows carried nonunion workers into the facility. No trucks crossed the strike line. Still, the workers showed up to sit in the cool darkness under the bright moon.

"There are no days off when you're fighting for your survival," Brandon Clark, 38, who works as a "switcher," driving a products truck in and out of docks at the site near Port Huron, told the Detroit Free Press.

"We're out here for the middle class, not just autoworkers," said the Eastpointe man. "We're here so everybody can have a fair share of the American pie."

Some 25,000 UAW workers have been strategically deployed to strike Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis since mid-September. The parts distribution sites for GM and Stellantis (which owns Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge) joined the campaign on Sept. 22, disrupting the flow of parts to car dealers and repair shops.

"I tell my daughter we're fighting for a better America," said Anthony Theeuwes, 52, of Port Huron. As a temporary worker for nearly three years, he earns $17.53 lifting car parts such as doors and tailgates. The strike allows him to walk Esme to second grade these days.

"We're waiting for a contract and hoping for the best," he said. "I was a breakfast cook at Mama Vicki's Coney Island (North) for 20 years. They paid more, plus benefits. They took good care of me. I thought coming to this job would be a good opportunity."

Between the hours of 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. Tuesday, these and other workers walked and gathered around pit fires, sharing stories of family trips to Greenfield Village and playing on the old train in Marysville Municipal Park across the street. They talked of challenges at home and goals for the future. A few had downloaded an astronomy app to try to figure out whether that really was Jupiter so brightly shining on the strike workers.

"I love this time of night. It gives you the feeling that you don't have to be active all the time. I just reflect on the scenery and take in everything when there is nothing else to take in," said Kylar Marinez, 23, of Marysville, who has earned $17.53 as a temporary worker for nearly three years. His uncle retired from the same warehouse.

Being up so late is unusual for workers who start their jobs at 4:24 a.m., like Theeuwes does. He's usually in bed by 7 p.m. But now he is savoring his time with family. "My daughter goes to Garfield Elementary. The fog setting over the field at school was beautiful. I don't usually get to see that."

'That blue-collar thing'

Empty pizza boxes from Murphy's Inn in St. Clair were stacked under the tent. Eli's Wood Fired Eats in the Streets of Port Huron came by, strikers said. Earlier, supporters delivered pulled pork, fresh fruit, apple cider and dozens of water bottles. A strike worker's family member runs the Flying Taco truck, often found at 4th and Water streets in Port Huron, and he stopped by to feed the strike line.

Close by, the Junction Buoy restaurant — so popular at all times of day — sat quiet and empty during the graveyard strike shift.

Families with deep ties to blue-collar and white-collar workers in the auto industry can't help but help, said Clark, whose family members worked on the assembly line and in management. His father had jobs at GM and Chrysler, both as an hourly worker and later salaried. His uncle worked at American Axle. His cousin works for GM. And his grandmother, who arrived in Detroit from Jackson, Mississippi, put screws on seat belts.

"She'd tell me all the time," Clark said, smiling.

There was no traffic passing by during these early morning hours. No cheering. Just solitude on this strike line.

Kevin McCormick, 53, of Port Huron could retire in 16 months from operating the turret truck that lifts him 80 feet in the air to stock parts.

"I have no family — no kids, no brothers or sisters, my parents passed," he said. "But I want to be here to support everyone. My dad worked here 37 years, doing repairs and keeping everything going. He got written up for coming in early. I grew up seeing that work ethic and that blue-collar thing."

Some portrayals of the strike in the news media have been frustrating because union members have been painted making unreasonable demands, McCormick said. "Nobody enters into negotiations asking for what they want. You ask for 20% to get 10%."

Small things like getting overtime after eight hours instead of after 40 hours seems fair, as well as restoring high-performance bonuses that seem to have disappeared since the pandemic, he said.

A chorus of workers from UAW Local 375 said they support Fain and the UAW and the unique tactic of targeting specific sites rather than calling on everyone to shut everything down. This strike is different as it hits all three Detroit automakers at the same time at specific facilities.

"No one wants to strike. No one wants to not work. No one wants to not pay bills," said Clark, one of many who will earn $500 a week in strike pay from the union. "We're preserving the strike fund and getting what needs to be done, done."

Jim Farley remark disappoints

A number of Stellantis workers called out Ford CEO Jim Farley for suggesting during a CNBC interview that UAW workers wanted $300,000 a year to work four-day weeks.

"He thinks he's funny, like his cousin," the late comedian and actor Chris Farley, said Brian Suggs, 54, a Hi-Lo driver from Fairhaven for the last 18 months who transferred from Sterling Stamping. "Apparently, humor runs in the family. There aren't enough hours in our lifetime. ..."

Strikers pointed out that many people work 40 hours in four days, and that should be considered. And while Farley inspired criticism for his recent remarks, Stellantis workers said they looked to Ford to lead the way with a good contract proposal because the 120-year-old company has such strong family ties to the industry.

Leave no one behind: 'They got us this far'

Trevor Hibbs, 31, a switcher driver as well as the UAW health and safety rep, curled up in what appeared to be a nylon chair like the kind on the sidelines of soccer games in the suburbs. He's hoping Stellantis will end wage tiers and restore the cost-of-living adjustment. He really wants better benefits for retirees.

"They got us this far," Hibbs, who earns about $32 an hour after a decade of employment, said of the retirees.

Fighting for fair compensation is the bottom line, said Broderick Williams, 49, a Hi-Lo driver who has worked at the warehouse for eight years — with 24 overall at the company. It took him eight years to get to $30 an hour. His fiancée, Breeanna Havro, a pharmacy tech who supports nursing home residents, joined him on the picket line after her work shift ended.

"My grandfather used to work at Ford on the line in Dearborn," Williams said, biting into a mandarin orange slice. "The American middle class autoworker was looked at as a beacon of stability."

More: Striking UAW members say they want benefits they gave up in 2007-2009 back: What they lost

More: Experts: Shawn Fain's biting style is creating a moment, just like another UAW labor icon

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @phoebesaid.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: For Striking UAW workers, night Stellantis picket line feels different