UAWD Steering Committee member Vail Kohnert-Yount (Local 2320) rallying for reproductive justice in Brownsville, Texas.
Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) joins our union and the thousands upon thousands of workers who have taken to the streets to protest in denouncing the June 24 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade. This decision triggers abortion bans in over two dozen states, immediately endangering the health and freedom of our members and families. The vast majority of UAW members live in states that have already banned abortion or are very likely to enact abortion bans soon.
Reproductive justice is a union issue. Unions have fought for workers’ ability to have autonomy over our own lives, including the right to organize, safe and healthy workplaces, and good jobs with access to health care. This includes the right to make personal reproductive health care decisions without interference from the government or our bosses. We cannot stand by as a court that has already attacked our unions continues its assault on our members’ rights.
Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, birth control, and fertility treatments, threatens the health, freedom, and economic stability of working people. Our members could have to spend thousands of dollars to travel out of state just to obtain care, or face long-term medical bills for unplanned pregnancies. This will disproportionately impact our lowest-paid members, including those in the bottom pay tiers, some of whom already struggle to support a family.
UAWD calls for our union to take the following actions:
1. In bargaining, we must demand employer support for reproductive health care, including ensuring workers can get financial support and job-protected time off. Ironically, some non-union employers are offering to cover travel expenses for employees who are forced to obtain reproductive health care in another state. We demand the same or better be guaranteed in our UAW contracts.
2. Our union must decisively reject all tiered contract language. UAW members in lower pay brackets are denied reproductive justice if they can’t afford to have children.
3. Our union must prepare to strike in 2023 for better health care that includes comprehensive reproductive health care, as well as elect political candidates in November who support abortion access and reproductive justice.
A UAWD Steering Committee member’s spouse explains what this decision means to her:
“With the recent overturn of Roe, I am increasingly worried about my own future and that of my daughter. As a 42-year-old woman, if I were to become pregnant, I would be considered high-risk and geriatric, which is dangerous in itself. Obviously, I have taken precautions to prevent pregnancy via IUD, but those precautions can cause issues, such as an ectopic pregnancy. In that case, I could not legally abort a non-viable pregnancy as I live in Kentucky. I would have to wait until my body decided to reject those cells, rupture my fallopian tubes, and possibly cause me to internally bleed to death. I also chose to become a mother to a now beautiful almost 11-year-old girl. I don’t know what the future has in store for her, but I pray she is given a choice. I pray she is allowed to choose her partner. I pray she is allowed to choose if and when she starts a family. I pray she will have a full life regardless of what old white men try to force on society.”
UAWD Steering Committee member Vail Kohnert-Yount (Local 2320) says:
“I consider myself lucky to have union health insurance here in Texas. About one in five Texans does not have health insurance, which is why our state has one of the highest maternal mortality rates. I’m now even more scared to have children in the state I’ve always called home, because if something goes wrong in my pregnancy, I might be left to die. My fellow Texans and UAW members have a wide range of views, but the vast majority of us agree that banning and criminalizing abortion is harmful—and harms the working class the most. I stand in solidarity with my union siblings who have had and will have abortions. Our union needs to keep fighting for our access to reproductive health care in our contracts and organizing workers in states where our rights are under attack.”
UAWD Steering Committee member Martha Grevatt (Local 869) says:
“What an outrage, that five of nine unelected, appointed-for-life, can just run roughshod over the majority public sentiment in this country! Women, along with trans and non-binary people who can get pregnant, are once again relegated to second-class status. The biggest effect will be felt by communities of color and others subjected to economic inequality.”
Millions of union members have similar stories to share.
In history and in recent times, SCOTUS has issued forth numerous rulings that uphold injustice: from denying people rights based on white supremacy, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ bias, and more to inventing the inane notion of corporate personhood. The rollback of civil rights and worker rights will not stop with Dobbs. Now is the time to speak up, protest, organize support networks, and even strike—not just for reproductive justice but for all of our rights potentially on the chopping block.