Mood upbeat along picket lines on US auto strike's first day

Tim Jackson was partly through a car repair Thursday night when he learned that Ford's Wayne, Michigan factory had been tapped as one of three plants nationally to strike.

"Everybody started yelling," Jackson recalled as he stood outside the Ford assembly plant on Friday evening while passing cars honked in approval of the United Auto Workers strike.

Spirits were high on the picket line throughout Friday, the opening salvo in the 88-year-old union's first ever simultaneous strike of Detroit's "Big Three" auto manufacturers.