How to stand up to fear in the auto-industry: The story of my grandpa and the fight for her faith and the Bible
The strikes aren’t a surprise. The previous managers went back decades and the new one has taken a militant tone. He says it’s the only way to ensure that workers get a fair share of the profits of car companies.
“My grandparents were part of millions of families that moved to the Midwest to work for auto companies and seek out a better life,” he said. I’m proud to have been able to inherit my grandma’s faith and the Bible from my grandpa.
He explained this week that he finds a lot to relate to in biblical stories of using faith to stand up to fear — something he is encouraging his membership to do now.
A Conversation with Harley Shaiken, the Foundry Manager at the UAW, in the ‘Democracy of the American Automakers’
“He’s an electrician. He worked at the Chrysler Kokomo foundry and became shop chair. Harley explained that that is among the most demanding jobs because you are dealing with grievances and issues on the shop floor all the time. A professor at UC Berkeley, Shaiken is an expert in labor organizing.
Eventually, Fain left Kokomo for a staff job at UAW headquarters in Detroit — at Solidarity House — helping those union officials who actually negotiated the national contracts.
The way the union’s leadership dealt with corporate management frustrated Fain. The early 2000s brought a lot of hard times for the industry in the form of the financial crisis and bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, but Fain felt that the union was giving up too many concessions. That included the tiered wage system where new hires were paid significantly less. In 2007, it was implemented and still continues today.
He wasn’t alone in his views, but such dissent gained no traction in those days. Workers were happy to have a job. At the time, the UAW, after decades of major wins, rolled back its requests of the automakers to try to sustain the industry at a time of great upheaval.
After a four-year FBI investigation into corruption in the UAW, they found that the union’s two former presidents had been sent to prison for stealing union dues. A dozen union officials were also found guilty.
The UAW was forced to change how it chose its leadership as part of a consent decree, after a federal monitor was named to oversee union operations. Instead of the delegates picking the brass, the membership would vote for top officers. That gave union reformers an opening.
He wanted to win back the concessions the union had given up 15 years ago, as well as end the multi-tier pay rates. He wears t-shirts with a slogan on them. He promised that he would use strikes to achieve the goals.
“Even though this was to be the first direct election of officers of the UAW in the history of the union, he seemed to have little chance of making it,” Harley Shaiken, the union expert, recalled.
The appetite for a progressive message was found when Fain reached out to members directly. He believed that the people wanted to hear a candidate who would hold Corporate feet to the fire and who also wanted politicians who win union endorsements to fight for causes important to unions.
He was standing outside the plant gates after visiting local union halls. He held campaign events on Facebook Live where he’d take questions from members who logged in for up to two hours at a time.
He started to gain momentum. And on the first ballot, he made it into a two-candidate runoff. On that second and final ballot, he won by the narrowest of margins, just 477 votes.
Source: How Shawn Fain, an unlikely and outspoken president, led the UAW to strike
Fain, the Union of Automobile Workers and the Future of the Automotive Industry: Is There Still Plenty of Way for All of Its Promises?
“Now we’re here to come together to ready ourselves for the war against our only one and only true enemy, multibillion-dollar corporations and employers that refuse to give our members their fair share,” Fain said at that April convention.
If some people find that rhetoric offensive, then it is up to them. It is his position to leave no doubt about the union’s role in being the voice and advocate for its members.
He continues to use Facebook Live to directly reach members of the union, including recent sessions where he displayed a trash can full of automaker proposals in contract talks.
He has preached it at plant gates and union halls on the road. And, appropriately, he stood in front of a crowd at a rally in Detroit on Labor Day and promised to stand tough.
The UAW is fighting to get economic and social justice. “So I have a question for all of you.” Are you ready to rumble?”
On the other, are the Big three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — who say they have put historically generous offers on the table, while also emphasizing that there are limits.
“Our goal is to secure a sustainable future that provides all our UAW-represented employees with an opportunity to thrive in a company that will be competitive during the automotive industry’s historic transformation,” Stellantis said in a statement.
SUB-Pay for the Fairfax Assembly Plant Employees’ Autonomous Driving Atmospheres and the Ford/Wentzville Collider
Ford told 600 workers not to report to work at its Michigan Assembly Plant’s body construction department because the metal parts they make need to be coated promptly for protection and the paint shop is on strike.
There will be 2,000 out of work at the Fairfax Assembly plant by the end of the week. The company says that’s due to a shortage of critical materials supplied by the stamping operations at its Wentzville plant in Missouri.
The companies say there is no compensation for this because of the strike. The company said, “We are working under an expired agreement at Fairfax.” Unfortunately, there are no provisions that allow for company-provided SUB-pay in this circumstance.”