Strike Preparation
UAWD Priority resolution for
the 2023 Bargaining Convention
Resolution on Effective Membership Strike Preparation
Training, Organizing, and Escalating Collective Action
To win the demands we’re calling for, it is imperative we launch a sweeping campaign to prepare our membership to strike by forming rank-and-file Strike Preparation Committees at each Local.
Update: At the 2023 Bargaining Convention on Tuesday, March 27, the vote to debate this resolution on the convention floor failed. The resolutions committee report that was passed at the end of the Bargaining Convention only mentioned UAW members’ ability to strike twice (see pages 42 and 46).
Background
- The UAW has suffered a dramatic decline of its membership over the last half-century, particularly in the auto and manufacturing sectors.
- The UAW has seen its power of collective action diminished through underinvestment, corruption, and neglect. Strike preparation often comes too little and too late to be effective counterweights to management demands.
Opposition from the Administration Caucus
- The long-term decline in the UAW’s power to strike powerfully and effectively is an analogy for the hollowing-out of America’s manufacturing capabilities. One telling statistic: Four out of five of the largest manufacturing strikes in UAW history took place before 1971. The fifth was in 1988.
- During the auto crisis of 2008-10, the UAW made major concessions to the automakers, including the abolition of cost-of-living allowances and the introduction of tiered pay. The industry went from crisis to record profits. UAW Members have never taken back these concessions.
- Further, following the 2008-10 crisis, the UAW slashed investment in Member organizing and in job action preparation, including its standing capability to take collective job action. Systemic corruption at the top of the UAW further diminished our Union’s credibility to take collective action and even to mobilize and organize workers.
- Outside of auto (including during the 2022 Local 2865 and 5810 University of California strikes), a recent talking point has been preserving resources, including the Strike Fund, by not undertaking (or keeping short) a strike over those workers’ own conditions.
- Overall, the UAW has put its emphasis on individual action—more stringent family budgeting, for example—over a core capability that is at the heart of any powerful union: the ability to take collective action and succeed in doing so.
Why Strike preparedness matters to us
- For those in the auto and manufacturing sectors, readiness to strike is critical to preserving our nation’s manufacturing base and the jobs and wages of the middle class. Americans are finally learning that supply chains are fragile and how outsourcing carries significant risk to worker security and economic opportunity.
- In higher ed, where even recognition as workers requires a fight and rapid turnover is the norm, support for developing an effective strike is very important as institutional memory requires active work. A particular area of development is the creation and sharing of new tactics for strikes by researchers, as there is not an established history of these yet.
- Systemic change is needed, and this can start with the formation of rank-and-file Strike Preparation Committees (SPCs) at each Local. These would be permanent committees that, among other activities, offer ongoing training, including learning from successful job actions within the UAW and outside it.
- SPCs would also recruit Members ready to stand for job action, create educational materials on contract demands and collective responses; hold regular meetings to sharpen skills and build capabilities, set up communications between SPC members at different locals; and facilitate transparent communication between rank-and-file Members and their Bargaining Committee.
- The formation of SPCs would also help Members in other sectors coordinate job action and provide assistance, insofar as possible, to Locals forced to take collective action.
- With some of the most important UAW contracts now ready to be bargained, it is time for the UAW to end its ad hoc approach to collective action, and build and invest in a powerful, permanent, Local-led capability
- A “just in time” mindset doesn’t work when it comes to preparing for effective, collective job action. SPCs can rebuild the UAW’s ability to plan and execute job actions, renewing what must again be a core capability of our union.
Draft Resolution
WHEREAS the UAW has suffered a dramatic demobilization of its membership over the last half-century, particularly in the auto and manufacturing sectors;
WHEREAS rank-and-file self-organization and preparation is essential for successful strikes, including training, internal organizing, and participation in escalating collective actions;
WHEREAS the Big Three contracts are expiring in 2023, and UAW members have a historic opportunity to end tiers and reverse past concessions;
WHEREAS the success of new organizing in the UAW also depends on the quality of existing UAW contracts, particularly in auto and manufacturing sectors;
WHEREAS the UAW currently discourages or provides very limited resources for member organizing, particularly in auto and manufacturing sectors, when it could instead provide extensive resources and mentorship for developing strong strike actions;
WHEREAS the UAW’s trainings on strike preparation focus almost exclusively on the individual responsibility to save money, rather than on collective preparation and collective action;
WHEREAS the UAW should begin incorporating lessons from successful strikes inside and outside the UAW featuring escalating contract campaigns;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the UAW will begin an immediate and sweeping expansion of membership preparation for a strike, recognizing that the contract we win is a reflection of the power we build;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the UAW should offer systematic contract campaign and strike trainings across the country, which focus on building working power at the worksite through mass participation in effective collective actions;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the UAW will establish rank-and-file Strike Preparation Committees (SPCs) in each local to educate members and organize for strike action, and that the UAW will put out a call to every Big Three shop for members to join a SPC at their worksite. SPCs will work to build power at the worksite through collective action, up to and including a strike. All members, whether rank-and-file or official leadership, will be able to participate in the formation of the SPC and the organizing it carries out;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the UAW should work with SPCs to organize national days of action as part of the contract campaign. These actions could include but are not limited to: parking lot meetings, button days, informational pickets at plants and locations such as dealerships, working to rule, etc.;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that SPCs will aim to coordinate with other Local SPCs through the International; create educational materials on contract demands and collective action; hold regular meetings and set up communications between SPC members; and facilitate transparent communication between rank-and-file members and Bargaining Committees.
2023 Convention
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