Mindy Isser writes for In These Times:
In 2008, amid the nation’s economic collapse, the UAW agreed to major concessions during contract negotiations, and it has struggled to fully recover. The union was also hampered by corruption, with more than a dozen officials caught reportedly embezzling millions of dollars in union funds between the early 2000s and as recently as 2021. But those scandals helped pave the way for these monumental new agreements the UAW just secured. That’s largely because before this most recent union election, union officers had been chosen by convention delegates instead of directly by members. Fed up with business as usual, members organizing within a reform caucus, Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), fought hard to pass a one-member-one-vote policy, which allowed workers to directly elect their officers. In the subsequent election, Fain narrowly won after a runoff. His victory was not only a win for him but a referendum on the overall direction of the union, with many members organizing and hoping for a more transparent and militant organization, especially in negotiations with the Big Three.
Stefan Marken, a member of Local 600 in Dearborn, Mich., and an activist with UAWD, says Ford and the UAW have shaped his life. His great-grandparents, uncles, aunts and father all worked for the company, and he’s been there almost nine years. Before Fain, this past strike and the current agreement, Marken says all he knew “was corruption.”
“My first contract in 2015 was corruption, 2019 was corruption, all the UAW presidents got indicted, Marken says. “This is the first time since I’ve been a member of the UAW that I have faith and that I believe in our union.”
Read more in In These Times.