Jessie Kelly knew there was an excellent chance she would end up on strike at General Motors. Long before her union, the United Auto Workers, declared a work stoppage this weekend, the 29-year-old mother of one began socking away savings to prepare for a long battle with the Detroit automaker.

I could live out three months, Kelly, an apprentice moldmaker at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, told HuffPost. I 100% feel this strike is necessary.

No one knows how long the largest auto strike in more than a decade will last. But workers like Kelly have dug in and dont plan to bend. They look at how well GM has done in recent years the company pulled in roughly $11 billion in pre-tax profits in 2018, and about $35 billion over the last three years combined and wonder why they shouldnt have a larger piece of the pie.

They shuffle us into a room every six months and praise these record-breaking profits, but they expect us to give back, Kelly said. We just do not understand right now why the company is still acting like were in bankruptcy when for the last four years theyve been extremely profitable.

Her outlook goes a long way in explaining why nearly 50,000 UAW members have stopped production at more than 50 GM facilities nationwide. The union said Sunday that the two sides remain far apart in negotiations, with a raft of outstanding issues to resolve. But the root of the deadlock is not hard to grasp.

GM very much wants to keep its costs down as auto sales slow and the company makes bets on electric vehicles. But GM workers told HuffPost they still recall the sacrifices the union made as the industry foundered in 2007, before the company returned to profitability. The concessions they made back then, including a two-tier wage system, still cast a shadow over the current talks.

Though workers have shared in GMs strong performance since then, with profit-sharing bonuses that can top $10,000 , they see no reason to bend to the company given its recent track record.