United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain recently laid out four priorities he says should form the nucleus of a workers’ political program. And he said that a broad strike in May 2028 is one way to fight for those priorities.
Fain spoke on September 30 at the release of a new report by the Center for Working-Class Politics, Jacobin, and allied groups. The report, titled “Democrats’ Rust Belt Struggles and the Promise of Independent Politics,” is based on a new survey showing that workers in four states battered by decades of mass layoffs — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin — are eager to see their basic issues addressed in the political arena.
The three thousand people surveyed supported policies that addressed “corporate greed and political corruption while correcting inequities in ways that felt immediate and tangible for working families,” the report found. Respondents included people of all political affiliations and classes, and were representative of the states’ populations.
Fain said UAW polling has found that union auto workers have similar priorities. He named these four: wages, health care, retirement, and winning back control of time — no more twelve-hour days, or working two jobs.
“Among our members, Republican, Democrat, independent, young, old, Black, white, every part of the country, over 90 percent say that those four issues are their top issues,” said Fain. “It’s not the border. It’s not bathrooms. It’s not religious beliefs. It’s the four core issues.”
Fain suggested that more working-class people need to run for office, like independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn in Nebraska — a mechanic and leader in the 2021 Kellogg’s strike — and Democratic Senate candidate Graham…
Auteur: Jenny Brown
