The election was a referendum on the new fighting direction Fain has taken the union by leading 2023’s Stand-Up Strike against the Big 3 automakers, other bold contract fights, and new organizing campaigns.
Fain and his team of 13 executive board candidates, dubbed the “Stand Up Slate” after the 2023 “Stand Up Strike” against the Big Three automakers, will face opposition.
If the labor movement hopes to survive, it must find ways to organize in the private sector at scale. The UAW’s national push to organize higher ed, and its recent union drives at Volkswagen and Mercedes, offer potential guidance on the way forward.
The UAW’s 70-year-old culture cannot be changed in one election. Cultural change needs sustained attention and commitment; without it, we will return to a one-party union controlled by just a handful of leaders.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain: “Make no mistake: the billionaire class is not going to give up power willingly. They are on an endless pursuit of profit, no matter the cost.”
The United States hasn’t seen such a massive labor action in 78 years. But the oligarchic wreckage of this administration is fueling multiple movements toward that goal.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain explains his union’s position on tariffs and argues that we need a political movement that puts working-class people first to address the current political crisis in the US.
Making sense of the new hell
Rank-and-file autoworkers democratized their union, elected president Shawn Fain, and won a landmark strike. Now they will have to win local officer positions, dominated by the old guard, to hold bosses to their word and maintain a fighting union.
Anyone wanting substantive discussion of jobs in last night’s debate was disappointed. But because of the UAW’s organizing and strikes over the past year, both Trump and Harris felt compelled to insist they were the best candidate for autoworkers.
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