The United Auto Workers, headed by a new reform leadership, recently waged a historic strike against the Big Three automakers.
The UAW’s “stand-up” strike strategy, which targets portions of the Big Three simultaneously, was a gamble. But the approach has worked so far, allowing the union to gradually escalate pressure on companies while empowering rank-and-file workers.
As more UAW members at the Big Three take to the picket lines, workers still on the shop floor are finding different ways to do their part to support the strike and stand up to management.
Seven thousand more UAW members just walked off the job, expanding the strike to two more plants. Twenty-five thousand autoworkers are now on strike, and the walkout could continue to escalate if the Big Three don’t budge in negotiations.
The UAW is calling on supporters to canvass car dealerships to educate customers about the strike. With scores of dealerships in every region of the country, it is an easy way to offer concrete solidarity to striking autoworkers.
Mixing Bible verses with class-struggle rhetoric, Shawn Fain’s pro-labor Christianity has baffled some in the media. But the UAW leader stands in a rich tradition brimming with scripture-quoting union workers and labor prophets like Eugene Debs and MLK.
With its ongoing strike against the Big Three, the UAW is attempting to recapture the fighting spirit of its heroic early days. The union’s militant approach marks a sharp break with the recent past — and could spark more insurgency across the labor movement.
Shawn Fain, the firebrand president of the UAW, is modeling exactly the kind of labor leader we need right now: one who boldly names the billionaire class as the enemy — and galvanizes workers themselves to fight back.
Big Three executives are claiming that UAW demands, including a just green transition, are too expensive. This is an obvious misdirection: the real sap on company finances is the billions of dollars in stock buybacks and executive compensation.
For days, the mainstream media has said Donald Trump is going to Michigan to speak to union autoworkers. That’s completely false: he is traveling there today to speak at a nonunion auto-parts shop, at the invitation of its boss.
Joe Biden’s historic visit to the picket line yesterday would never have happened if the UAW simply cozied up to Biden. As the union showed, you don’t win by showing deference to Democratic elites — you use the leverage you have to extract concessions.
Today Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to walk a picket line when he joined striking autoworkers. It says less about him than it does the electrifying effects of the strike — forcing politicians, and everyone else, to side with either workers or CEOs.
With the UAW strike spreading, GM is dispatching nonunion workers and managers to try to keep their parts distribution centers running. “I wish them luck,” one striking worker said. “They’re gonna be so goddamn lost.”
Members of my chapter, Detroit’s Democratic Socialists of America, are mobilizing to support the United Auto Workers’ historic strike. Here’s some of what we’re doing — and what other socialists can do when the strike comes to their town.
The UAW’s ongoing “stand-up strike” represents an earth-shattering departure from the union’s recent history. It’s the fruit of decades of efforts to transform the union and return it to its militant roots.
Today the UAW is making headlines for an energetic strike, helmed by new leadership that doesn’t shy away from the language of class war. It’s happening, in large part, because a small group of workers got together four years ago to reform their union.
The UAW strike just got bigger. The union announced this afternoon that workers at 38 GM and Stellantis locations would join the walkout — and the pressure tactics are already working, with Ford making significant concessions at the bargaining table.
As autoworkers are worked to the bone and face factory closures, dynastic billionaire and Stellantis chairman John Elkann is hanging out on his yacht and attending fancy art galas. No wonder the UAW is on strike.
The UAW has given the Big Three until noon tomorrow to make progress at the bargaining table or face a strike escalation. One week in, the historic walkout has already left politicians and bosses alike scrambling amid an utterly justified worker action.
The UAW strike has put the GOP in a bind: keep pitching themselves as pro-worker or reveal their rhetoric as a masquerade. Yesterday, presidential candidate Tim Scott chose to say what Republicans actually think: “You strike, you’re fired."
The UAW strike has rocketed into the presidential race, with Trump announcing a speech to autoworkers and the union trying to use Biden’s electric vehicle subsidies to open the sector to unionization. The strike's result will have major political implications.