A year after the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) stand-up strike, the union caucus that helped make it possible is setting out to transform locals still stuck in the mud. Its first step is to fight a new onslaught of layoffs, broken promises, and retaliation from CEOs.
The reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) held its first convention last weekend outside Detroit, with 150 UAW members, mostly autoworkers but also from higher -ed, legal services, and heavy equipment manufacturing.
Shafarrah Hill, a Stellantis transport driver from a Detroit local, said she joined the convention after local officers did nothing about bullying by her supervisors. “My union steward has been telling me for two years,” she said, “that if I want to do something about it, I need to come to UAWD.”
The caucus was formed in 2019 to campaign for one-member-one-vote elections for top offices. After winning that right, it had to put up or shut up, and backed candidates on the Members United slate for seven seats on the UAW executive board, winning a sweep in 2022–23 and electing Shawn Fain president. That victory was quickly followed by the stand-up strike at the Big Three automakers last fall, which won contract gains worth the previous four contracts combined.
But all has not been smooth sailing since then, for either the union or the caucus. UAW vice president Mike Booth said, “We’re passing; it’s not straight As.”
Stellantis, in particular, has laid off hundreds of temporary workers, refused to honor its contractual commitment to reopen a closed plant (in Belvidere, Illinois), and said it will move certain assembly work from Detroit across the river to Canada.
The Stellantis contract, it turned out, actually contained an ugly…
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Auteur: Keith Brower Brown
