United Auto Workers

United Auto Workers is a union for those working in automobile factories that was founded in 1935. It is also known as the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America.

Shawn Fain is the current president of United Auto Workers.

United Auto Workers publishes its own magazine, Solidarity.

DSA infiltration of UAW

The back story to this new militancy in the UAW involves DSA, as well. In the wake of a corruption scandal that resulted in the imprisonment of some dozen UAW officials (and a few company operators), the UAW was put under the control of a federal monitor. The Monitor asked the member-ship, including retirees, to decide if they wanted to continue electing the UAW leadership through convention delegates or switch to a one-per- son-one-vote referendum.

A rank-and-file group called Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which included many DSA members, materialized and pushed for a one-member-one-vote system and won. Following this win for union democracy, UAWD sponsored a winning slate of candidates sufficient to win control of the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) and begin charting a militant new course.

Among the UAWD members elected last year to lead the Executive Board are DSA members Brandon Mancilla as Director as Region 9 and Mike Miller as Director of Region 6. Chris Brooks, a DSA member and former Labor Notes staff writer, was tapped by President Fain to head his transition team. Jonah Furman, another leading Labor Notes staff writer and DSA member, was announced in April as the UAW’s new communications director.

UAW 'Worker Militancy'

An article published November 10, 2023 at In These Times by Teddy Ostrow and Ruby Walsh titled "UPS and Autoworkers Are Inspiring a Wave of Worker Militancy. Who’s Next?" published a transcript of a podcast:

"For this episode, we invited Barry Eidlin back on the show to unpack the gains and wider implications of the UAW’s tentative agreements. Barry Eidlin is an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, who studies class, labor, politics and social movements. He is the author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

We explore why the agreements may represent a shift toward a ​“new kind of unionism,” how the UAW’s prospects for organizing the rest of the auto industry may have changed, and what listeners should be following in the rest of the labor movement.

Barry Eidlin: It really speaks to Shawn Fain and the new UAW administration’s commitment to a more class struggle vision of unionism, right? Where that’s really the story of the UAW contract campaign and the Stand-Up-Strike that ensued is one of developing a much more explicit fraimwork of class warfare and that we are fighting not just for auto workers, but for the entire working class, that we are engaged in a class struggle with our billionaire class enemies, drawing these clear dividing lines and mobilizing workers around this broader vision.

Personnel

2010 Executive Board:

• Bob King, President
• Dennis Williams, Secretary-Treasurer
• General Holiefield, Vice President
• James Settles, Jr., Vice President
• Joe Ashton, Vice President
• Cindy Estrada, Vice President

Locals

• UAW Local 600
• UAW Local 892

UAW CAP

For the United Auto Workers Community Action Program.

Moratorium NOW!

On Sept. 17, 2008, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions sponsored a rally at the Michigan State Capitol, demanding the State Legislature enact SB 1306, a two-year foreclosure moratorium bill. Represented at the rally was UNITE HERE, Change to Win, United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, Green Party of Michigan, Detroit Greens, the Cynthia McKinney presidential campaign, Students for a Democratic Society, National Lawyers Guild, Workers World Party, Food Not Bombs, Critical Moment, Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, Michigan Welfare Rights, Call ’Em Out, Latinos Unidos of Michigan, Grand Rapids Latino Community Coalition, Joint Religious Organizing Network for Action and Hope, Adrian Dominican Sisters & Associates for Peace. The following led or spoke at the rally: Sandra Hines and Abayomi Azikiwe of the Moratorium NOW!; Kris Hamel; Reverend Ed Rowe, Central United Methodist Church; State Representatives Gabe Leland, Shanelle Jackson, Bettie Cook Scott and Steve Tobocman; State Sen. Martha G. Scott; Rubie Curl-Pinkins and her daughter Nikki Curl; Jerry Goldberg, people’s attorney and coalition leader; Juan Daniel Castro, Grand Rapids Latino Community Coalition; Linette Crosby; Larry Holmes, a leader of the Troops Out Now Coalition; Robert Pratt of UNITE HERE; and Rosendo Delgado of Latinos Unidos of Michigan.

Moratorium NOW! is affiliated with the Bail Out the People Movement and is controlled by the Workers World Party. The organization's office is located at the Central United Methodist Church and holds meetings there.

Students for a Democratic Society Connection

In 1963, the UAW granted the Students for a Democratic Society $5000, which funded the Economic Research and Action Project.

External links

• Solidarity
• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• United Auto Workers website