Alex Press writes for Jacobin about how the UAW launched a historic strike at the Big Three in 2023—and how 2024 might be an even bigger year:
The United Auto Workers (UAW) has had a historic year.
Coming into 2023, the union had held its first-ever direct elections for leadership, and when the year began, the race for the top seat was too close to call. Shawn Fain, the candidate for the UAW Members United reform slate and a member of Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a recently formed reform caucus, was vying with incumbent Ray Curry for the international presidency.
The results of the runoff came in mere days before the union held a special bargaining convention in Detroit, Michigan, to determine priorities for the upcoming negotiations with the Big Three automakers, who employ some 150,000 members. When the ballots were tallied, Fain had won by less than five hundred votes. He was sworn in as UAW president on March 26, the day before the convention kicked off. It proved to be one of the most important political developments in the United States all year.
Read more in Jacobin.