United Auto Workers (UAW)

Scott Houldieson had some questions. He had worked at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 551, since 1989, but in the late 2000s the company was in a financial hole following the Great Recession, and the leaders of the UAW told him and his fellow coworkers that they were going to have to give up some of the benefits that had long made auto work a good blue-collar job. Houldieson understood that times were hard; he’d seen the quarterly reports showing gigantic losses for the company, even if it wasn’t facing bankruptcy like its competitors, but something still didn’t compute.

A year after the United Auto Workers’ Stand-Up Strike, the union caucus that helped make it possible is setting out to transform locals still stuck in the mud. Their first step is to fight a new onslaught of layoffs, broken promises, and retaliation from CEOs. The reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) held its first convention last weekend outside Detroit, with 150 UAW members, mostly auto workers but also from higher ed, legal services, and heavy equipment manufacturing. Shafarrah Hill, a Stellantis transport driver from a Detroit local, said she joined the convention after local officers did nothing about bullying by her supervisors. "My union steward has been telling me for two years,” she said, “that if I want to do something about it, I need to come to UAWD."