The former union electrician was an underdog in recent UAW leadership elections, but with a tough love approach to auto companies in negotiations, he narrowly won. Now he's taking the union on strike.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain speaks outside the UAW Local 900 headquarters across the street from the Ford Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich. The union announced the start of a strike at three factories just after midnight on Friday.Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images
"He's an electrician. He served an apprenticeship and he became shop chair in the Chrysler Kokomo foundry. That's among the most demanding jobs in the union in that you're dealing with grievances and issues on the shop floor all the time," Harley Shaiken explained. Shaiken is a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in labor organizing.
He wasn't alone in his views, but such dissent gained no traction in those days. Many workers were just happy to have a job. At the time, the UAW, after decades of major wins, rolled back its requests of the automakers to try to sustain the industry at a time of great upheaval.Then came a bombshell that would change everything again: a major corruption scheme involving many of those leaders Fain was at odds with.
UAW President Shawn Fain talks with reporters before marching in the Detroit Labor Day Parade on Sept. 4.UAW President Shawn Fain talks with reporters before marching in the Detroit Labor Day Parade on Sept. 4.He ran on a platform to end corruption, to win back what the union had given up in concessions 15 years ago and to end those multi-tier pay rates. He wears T-shirts with"End Tiers" printed on the front to rallies.
But Fain worked hard, reaching out to members directly, and found there was an appetite for a progressive message. He believed people wanted to hear from a candidate who would hold corporate feet to the fire and one that would demand that politicians who win union endorsements actually fight for causes important to unions.
"Now we're here to come together to ready ourselves for the war against our only one and only true enemy, multibillion-dollar corporations and employers that refuse to give our members their fair share," Fain said at that April convention.
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