UAW Leader Shawn Fain Is Bullish on the American Auto Worker

United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America president Shawn Fain is the UAW's most outspoken leader since Walter Reuther took the top job in 1946. An electrician by trade—and the proud owner today of a 2010 Dodge Charger («It’s got a Hemi,» he says) and a 1984 Chevrolet El Camino, handed down from his grandfather—Fain originally took a job at Chrysler's Kokomo, Indiana, factory in 1994. Becoming a union committee person, he ran against the grain of the union's national leadership, notably opposing givebacks agreed during the 2007–2009 recession.

He might have been just a bothersome but easily ignored union dissident were it not for the 2022 felony convictions of 14 UAW officials and three FCA executives for fraud and corruption, including embezzlement. After the corruption of its management was exposed, union membership voted to elect their leader directly for the first time, giving outsider Fain a fighting chance. He won an upset victory over the Caucus's preferred candidate and assumed the presidency in March 2023.

As the big American carmakers' UAW agreements drew close to their September 2023 expiration date, Fain articulated, in unusually blunt language, workers' outrage over wages that failed to keep pace with inflation and benefits dramatically inferior to those paid in previous decades, shortfalls compounded by the introduction of a «two tier» wage system that saw new hires paid less than existing employees. Givebacks remained through years of record industry profits and skyrocketing executive compensation. When the companies failed to come close to meeting the UAW's demands, a strike was declared, with the union choosing to strike all three Detroit automakers at once rather than pick a single «target» as in years past.

Stand Up Strike

Thanks to a new, young staff utilizing social media with a sophistication unseen in previous campaigns, the UAW was able to rally its membership as well as capture the sympathy of the media and the public. Further catching carmakers off guard, the union's «Stand Up Strike» strategy shut down production at individual factories, saving the union money in benefits owed versus company-wide