Shawn Fain Has Ambitions Larger Than The Labor Movement

Shawn Fain calls for general strike on May Day 2025.

Shawn Fain, the President of the United Auto Workers, has aspirations larger than the next unionization effort. He is taking a head-on stance against what he thinks are the largest challenges to the U.S., and it’s not immigration at the Mexico border. As Olivia Rosane reports, his aim is ‘a wider political movement led by the working class’. In a January speech he said,

"They try to divide us nationally by nationality," Fain said. "Right now, we have millions of people being told that the biggest threat to their livelihood is migrants coming over the border. The threat we face at the border isn't from the migrants. It's from the billionaires and the politicians getting working people to point the finger at one another, when in reality, we're all on the same side of the war against the working class."

Fain has scheduled the UAW’s contract with the Big Three to expire on May 1, 2025, and he’s calling for a general strike, where all union members and supporters would walk out, in solidarity:

We have to pay for our sins of the past. Back in [1981] when Reagan at the time fired PATCO [Professional Air Traffic Controllers] workers, everybody in this country should have stood up and walked the hell out," Fain said. "We missed the opportunity then, but we're not going to miss it in 2028. That's the plan. We want a general strike. We want everybody walking out just like they do in other countries."

He is pushing to end the two-tier pay scheme that many unions workers accepted in the bad years, where new workers receive no pensions, just contributions to a 401(k), but he’s enlarging the fight to include everyone to gain pensions:

Fain argued that the UAW could resolve this in part by broadening the fight for retirement security to include the whole nation, though he said they would continue to push the Big Three as well.

"Either the Big Three guarantee retirement security for workers who give their lives to these companies or an even bigger player does: the federal government," he said.

He added: "We can't just fight for good contracts for our members alone. We fight for a society—from union contracts, to federal legislation, to our political system as a whole, that serves the working class and poor, that serves the people. We fight for a political program that serves humanity, not the inhumane interest of the wealthy and corporate greed."

Shawn Fain and the UAW endorsed Biden for 2024. I am endorsing Fain for president 2028.