![]() I don’t have to tell you how much inflation is once again hammering us you’re living it every day.” We need to fight to end the practice of using lower paid temporary workers for years on end and abuse of LLCs or joint ventures to lower our standards.”īrowning noted, “Like so many other important gains we made in bargaining over the decades, we lost COLA in 2009 as a result of the auto bankruptcies during the Great Recession. Referring to the wage and benefit tier system and use of highly exploited temporary workers, Boyer stated, “We need to fight to end the second-class status of workers who are being denied retiree health care and pensions. Other speakers feigned outrage at the deterioration of workers’ living standards. Silence on the UAW’s record of collusion with the companies Large numbers of workers were never provided adequate notice of the elections or received a ballot because the UAW apparatus deliberately refused to update workers’ contact information in its member database, as documented in an official challenge to the election results filed by Will Lehman, a rank-and-file worker and candidate for UAW president. In an unintentional yet significant admission of the illegitimacy of his new administration, Fain later said in response to a question about transparency that “it’s important as members that you update your email addresses, your phone numbers, just so we can have better dialogue.”įain’s comments were a further confirmation of the fraudulent character of the 2022 UAW national elections, which saw an abysmally low turnout of just 9 percent in the first round, and less than 13 percent in the second round. Seeking to burnish his image as carrying out a fight to defend jobs, Fain referred to Master Lock’s recently announced decision to close its Milwaukee, Wisconsin, plant, eliminating the jobs of over 360 UAW members, which he attributed to “one simple thing, greed.” Fain offered absolutely no proposals to fight the job cuts or mobilize other UAW members in support, instead saying lamely, “I just want to ask you all to keep them in your thoughts.” They can afford our demands, and we expect them to pony up.” ![]() And our members have created incredible value for these companies during some really hard and dangerous years. Second, these companies have been extraordinarily profitable. We must fight to end tiers, we must fight to reinstate cost of living, and we must fight for stronger job protections. “First, we’re going into bargaining with clear priorities. “The goal of tonight is to get everyone on the same page about two things,” Fain stated. Fain, Mock, Boyer and Booth were all members of the Members United/United All Workers for Democracy “reform” slate in last year’s elections, while Browning, a key player in the sellout of the 2021 Deere strike, is a holdover from the UAW’s former ruling Administration Caucus. The UAW’s new top leadership-President Shawn Fain, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock, and Vice Presidents Chuck Browning, Rich Boyer and Mike Booth-all sought to present themselves as leading a fight against concessions, the tier system and job cuts. The “town hall” event itself was a face-lifting measure voted in under former UAW President Ray Curry and the Administration Caucus at the 2022 UAW Constitutional Convention. Comments on the UAW’s YouTube stream were disabled, and questions from UAW members could only be submitted in advance, with only five carefully selected to respond to. The tightly scripted, 25-minute event was aimed at projecting an air of “transparency” and militancy on the part of the UAW’s new top leadership, while they in fact prepare to carry out the same policies as their predecessors: brutal attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions at the behest of the auto companies.Ĭontrary to the claims that the town hall represented a step towards democracy, the meeting was designed to exclude as much as possible the participation of rank-and-file workers. On May 31, the United Auto Workers International held an online “town hall,” which it dubbed in a press release the first such “union wide” meeting, headlining it as “Back in the Fight: Our Generation’s Defining Moment at the Big Three.” A more honest title would have been “Controlling the Narrative.” ![]() UAW President Shawn Fain speaks at the May 31 town hall ![]()
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