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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another Hero For Our Times – Shawn Fain

Another Hero For Our Times – Shawn Fain

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There’s an old saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  It’s not the same, of course, but it strikes me that in these turbulent times, when everything the U.S. stands for is in peril, leaders have appeared.

Sheldon Whitehouse is one.  Marc Elias is another.  ProPublia is another.   Not a person, of course, but a media entity that is leading gate way, committing actual journalism on a regular basis.

To that list I would add Shawn Fain.  We talk about this or that person giving something “a bad name” – in my opinion, Shawn Fain is giving unions a good name.

The Guardian interviews Shawn Fain

From Amazon and UPS to Starbucks and Hollywood studios, organized labor is making a comeback in the US after decades of decline. Shawn Fain thinks he knows why: “Workers have realized they’ve been getting screwed for decades, and they’re fed up.”

The United Auto Workers (UAW) president has emerged at the front of the pack of a new generation of labor leaders as a galvanizing voice in a critical year for the labor movement and American politics.

A soft-spoken but unrelentingly blunt midwesterner, Fain has met the moment in his role as the union’s newly elected president. Having beaten the US’s big three automakers into a landmark new union contract, Fain’s members have been courted by both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Fain has gone all in for the Democrats despite some reservations and the misgivings of some of his members.

Now he faces bigger tests. The UAW is taking its fight to states that have long, successful records of seeing off union drives – and he must hold his new coalition together as the US enters a fractious election cycle that will pit worker against worker.

The union boss’s political ascendancy was crowned by his recent appearance as a guest at Joe Biden’s State of Union address, where both he and the union were called out in a nationally-televised salute from the commander-in-chief.

Sporting a new, closely cropped beard and wearing a dark business suit and tie for the Capitol occasion, Fain responded with a raised power fist, telegraphing in one succinct image how much organized labor’s message and tone have changed of late, along with their popularity.

The winning trajectory of the union and its new, class-conscious president have caught carmakers off guard, no more so than when Fain, 55, contrasts his workers’ declining wages with corporate share buybacks and the lavish compensation bestowed upon automotive CEOs.

Not without irony, Fain’s ascent almost certainly wouldn’t have been possible but for the 2022 federal felony convictions of more than a dozen union officials, as well as three Stellantis executives, for fraud and corruption, including embezzlement of union training funds. A UAW dissident with near 30 years’ previous service as a Stellantis (formerly FCA and Chrysler) electrician in Kokomo, Indiana, Fain unseated the union’s long-entrenched leadership cabal in 2023, vowing to root out corruption and change what he viewed as the union’s overly accommodating posture toward their employers.

Southern Republican Governors Are Suddenly Afraid (gift link)

by Jamelle Bouie

Last year the United Auto Workers announced an ambitious plan to organize workers and unionize foreign-owned auto plants in the South.

“One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W., said after winning significant wage and benefit gains in negotiations with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Six.”

Fain, believe it or not, may have understated the union’s ambitions.

Another excerpt:

The mere potential for union success was so threatening that the day before the vote began, several of the Southern Republican governors announced their opposition to the U.A.W. campaign. “We the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the U.A.W. has brought into our states,” their joint statement reads. “As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”

It is no shock to see conservative Republicans opposing organized labor. But it is difficult to observe this particular struggle, taking place as it is in the South, without being reminded of the region’s entrenched hostility to unions — or any other institution or effort that might weaken the political and economic dominance of capital over the whole of Southern society.

Jamelle Bouie is one of the redeeming things about the NYT.  Read the whole thing.  

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Are most UAW members black? It seems like most photos I see of UAW members in articles about unions feature black people.  Can’t tell if they’re just being inclusive or subliminally trying to paint unions as a black thing.  Or if the whole thing is just my imagination.

    Anywho, as I’ve said before, they’re going to go all out to get Trump elected to nip resurgent union power in the bud.

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    Shawn walks the talk.  Good, good.

    In other news, the House is debating amendments to the Ukraine supplemental now.  https://www.c-span.org/radio/ has an audio live stream.

    I think the votes are at 1 PM, but I don’t know the details.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    NorthLeft

    The southern/Republican governors are more upset with the unions because they consider the spreading of misinformation and the use of scare tactics strictly their property.

    It’s always about projection with those assholes.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott:  I am sort of leaning toward holding my breath until the voting is over, rather than following along which I would normally want to do.

    I had to quit watching basketball decades ago because I would get so wound up.  Free throws were painful to watch – you’re just standing there, how can you not get it right 99 times out of 100?

    That’s kind of how I feel about the voting that’s going on today.  This vote is make or break for Ukraine, for a functioning government, and for democracy.  I’m not sure I can bear to watch all the ups and downs, ins and outs.

    I think I’ll be better off if I hear it in bits and pieces on Balloon Juice.  Enough to get a feel, but not like watching the fucking needle on the NYT website on election night in 2016.  That visceral memory will never leave me.

    Funny, we are all built differently.

  6. 6.

    Geminid

    Journalist Jaime Dupree reported fifteen minutes ago that the House had began debate on 4 Republican amendments to cut funding from the Ukraine aid bill. Voting on the amendments and the bills is supposed to begin at 1 or 1:30 p.m.

    According to Axios reporter Anthony Desiderio(sp?), Chuck Schumer hopes to pass the amended Senate bill on Tuesday. There may be a preliminary Senate vote this afternoon.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @jackmac:  Yet I feel the need to watch the Trump court case sausage!

    Ukraine is an altogether different animal for me.  It’s all-or-nothing time, and there aren’t words for how unacceptable it would be to let Ukraine twist in the wind until Ukraine is gone, and democracy with it.

  17. 17.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: I think I’ll be better off if I hear it in bits and pieces on Balloon Juice.

    Thanks to all of you, this is where I get my news. I was reminded of that when I read the jurors’ answers to this question. I was shaking my head “nope, nope, nope”. No cable news. A Guardian subscription (and now the Baltimore Banner) but no other real news. Other than that, just blogs.

    This one aggregates all the news sources so I probably could have answered, yes, I spend at least three hours a day reading summaries of all of them.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: After Marjorie Greene spoke in favor of her amendment zeroing out Ukraine aid, Washington Democrat Adam Smith responded that Greene’s argument was “uniquely demented.”

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Part of the rules is that they postpone the actual voting until after all the debates are over.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud:

    Anywho, as I’ve said before, they’re going to go all out to get Trump elected to nip resurgent union power in the bud.

    It was just last week that JD Vance, the venture capitalist’s populist, claimed that Biden’s policies benefit the billionaires, not the working class, like Peter Thiel.

    How’s there even a “working class”, when no one wants to work anymore?

  22. 22.

    Memory Pallas

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy is another leader/teacher/hero who has emerged to meet the challenges of today. I don’t want to diminish the situation and struggle faced by Ukrainians (especially today) — just to indicate that he has been as meaningful and moving a figure to me as an American as Whitehouse and co., above.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    Militant RWers really hate unions. I recall, years ago, I was watching C-SPAN, with Noot Gingrich expounding somewhat rationally on various subjects. And then the subject of unions came up. His face turned red, steam started coming out of his ears. Triggered, I’d say nowadays.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    @MattF:  The Republicans thought they had neutered the unions enough so they couldn’t influence elections.

    According to them, we were not supposed to rise up again!

  28. 28.

    Mai Naem mobile

    The Southern auto plant owners have nobody but themselves and their pure greed to blame. Their  ‘everything for me, zero for you’ motto finally caught up with them.

  29. 29.

    Mousebumples

    Thank you for the gift link, and agreed that we have some great leaders for labor and our government

    Eta – from the article:

    … like a gardener taking stock of her plot for the season ahead, we will have to be patient. Victory might bring the chance to refresh the soil in preparation for a new kind of New South.

    Unions can help us change the political fortunes in the years to come.

  32. 32.

    Jay C

    I’m not all that familiar with labor issues, but I can’t help wondering if it is just a coincidence that the UAW’s first big unionization pushes are at VW (TN) and Mercedes (AL). ISTR from quite while back, that it was CW that the German companies (who, I think, have to have union representatives on their Boards, by law) were moderately less [rabidly] anti-union than some other manufacturers.

    And yeah, that Southern Governors’ letter was really a piece of work: I’m surprised they didn’t try to work the term “communistic” in there somewhere…

  34. 34.

    cmorenc

    I initially mis-speed-read the title as praising “Sean Finn” (as in, Irish Republican Army Sean Finn) and did a brief WTF! double-take until I slowed down and read the title correctly.

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    Max Cohen (Punchbowl News) reported yesterday that Nancy Pelosi endorsed J6 hero Harry Dunn in the Maryland 3rd CD primary race. Dunn hopes to succeed retiring Congressman John Sarbanes.

  37. 37.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    The GQP stooge mayor of Hamilton County (it’s where Chattanooga is located) had this predictable response to the UAW/VW signature drive:

    “Every single foreign auto plant that the UAW has unionized has closed. By contrast, VW has thrived here without them. Now that the UAW won in Chattanooga, I hope they will at least learn from our success as they try to overcome their reputation for job losses and corruption.“

    My favorite response:

    “Brother you haven’t seen a hard day of work in your life. I’d love to see you work 12hr swing shifts at the plant for <$40k a year. You and your sister are nepo babies who have ridden daddies coattails into tax payer funded salaries. Maybe sit this one out little fella.“

  39. 39.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Jay C:

    VW Group at least has some experience in North America working with the UAW.  The Navistar plant in Springfield OH is a UAW shop and is part of the VW Group.

    Also too, from a CNN piece:

    “One thing helping the UAW is that unions have much more clout in Germany than in the United States, and the main Volkswagen union there has a seat on the company’s board. This is also the only VW plant without union representation.“

    Thus, it was probably no coincidence that the UAW started here.

    This is all made possible by the fact Biden is president, clearly the first real union-friendly president in my lifetime, and there’s a not-antagonistic NLRB.  That would all go away if *any* GQP candidate became presnit.

  42. 42.

    RevRick

    @Jay C: The Southern GOP governors believe in the hierarchical system that has long ruled the culture of that section. It’s no surprise that the mascot of UVA is a cavalier, one of King Charles 1’s military supporters in the Civil War with the Puritans and Parliament. It’s an article of faith that some are meant to rule and others to be ruled.

    Since unions seek to counter that stranglehold by demanding fairer, more equitable treatment of workers, they fear a future where their beliefs no longer hold sway. Unions, for them, pose a cultural threat as well as the obvious economic one. It has been a Southern conceit since our nation’s founding that the South is morally superior to the North, just as it’s been a rural conceit of their superiority over city dwellers.

  45. 45.

    Starfish

    @Baud: There have recently been more visible Black folks like Chris Smalls organizing for unions. A lot of the way that unions have been beaten in the South is that the companies have exploited the racial divide, and Black folks have been scared of the possibility of not finding other work if the companies cut their jobs after unionization efforts.

    If the photos you are seeing are of places in the South organizing, then you are going to see more Black folks than you would otherwise see.

  46. 46.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    It has been a Southern conceit since our nation’s founding that the South is morally superior to the North, just as it’s been a rural conceit of their superiority over city dwellers.

    Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’ should have been a) wider, and b) far more circuitous.  Those were regrettable oversights on his part.

    As was the decision to not get hasty with the hangman’s noose after the shooting bit ended.

  50. 50.

    narya

    I love me some Sean Fain. Sometimes I feel like we’re living through that cartoon of the school of little fish going after the big fish–and in so many areas! Unions are definitely part of it, and all of the people mentioned in the OP. It also helps me feel like my puny postcard efforts are actually a worthwhile pursuit, too.

    In a completely unrelated item, I have these two porch chairs with elastic cord holding the seats onto the frame. The elastic has disintegrated, but this morning I went to one of those big old-fashioned fabric and notions stores (NOT one of the ones owned by RWNJs) and found exactly what I needed to replace the elastic. Repair, reuse, recycle.

  51. 51.

    Eolirin

    @RevRick: And that sense of moral superiority has always been so bizarre given that it’s fundamentally rooted in an embrace of slavery, even now. The amount of black is white up is down thinking necessary to sustain that is mind boggling to me.

    But I guess you kind of have to do that in order to continue to support what they’re supporting. Any remotely honest reckoning would cause that entire world view to collapse.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    AA’s have a higher union rate than white people.

    In 2012, black workers had a higher union membership rate (13.4 percent) than white workers (11.1 percent).

    Some of it is due to public sector unions. The public sector went to merit-based hiring (exams) in the 1950s and 1960s (previously it was crony-based hiring). African Americans could compete better in the public sector than in the private sector – the private sector hired using only subjective measures, which of course leads to bias. It’s harder to discriminate based on race if you have two applicants taking a civil service exam with the same score. Objective, they had a shot to get the job.

  53. 53.

    Kay

     

    One of the big advantages for AA in unions is transparency. Wage discussions are out in the open. Everyone knows what everyone makes. No one can cheat them with private management discussions where they’re paid less.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    It’s probably good Democrats lost the WWC for a period. They really are more conservative then the Democratic Party as a whole and they would have pulled us Right on “social issues” (and also guns) during a period where the Democrats were going Left.

    I think we needed a new bargain. We’re a big tent and we’d love to have them but civil and human rights for everyone is non negotiable – AA, women, immigrants, religious minorities, trans people, etc. I’l go back and forth with them on gun regs or “wokeness” or whatever the fuck they’re on about as far as “culture” but my right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. That’s the new deal.

  61. 61.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @WaterGirl: I don’t understand @cain’s comment. I certainly don’t expect unions to have any influence in Russia, for example.

  63. 63.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Hoppie: ah, a different definition of the word “union” I take it. Analogous, you know, to “peoples’ republics.”

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    @Eolirin: Yeah, I am totally perplexed.  I have read RevRick’s comment 3 times now and I still don’t understand either question.  Cain’s or Mr. Bemused Senior’s.

  67. 67.

    bjacques

    I reckon Cain’s referring to the comment about Southron Governors calling unions everything but communistic, as if unions were powerful against bosses in Russia and Venezuela, which they obviously are not. Like “free love”, another supposed communist trait, though those countries are/were actually prudish.

    I once worked with a guy named Shane Finn. We called him the political wing of the IRA.

  68. 68.

    RevRick

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch the VW workers at the Chattanooga plant have voted in favor of joining the union

  69. 69.

    Hoppie

    @Eolirin: Those governments sponsor “unions” which pretend to be similar to western labor organizations, as part of controlling the people.  That’s what makes a “people’s republic”.  Orwell was onto it as a linguistic thing.

  71. 71.

    Hoodie

    Late to this thread, but it’s important to understand that unionization is probably a bigger threat to southern GOP pols than it is to the companies.   Unions provide mechanisms for educating and organizing workers so that they’re more likely to vote Democratic, so the GOP always targets them.  For example, when the GOP took over the NC state legislature, the state teachers’ organization became one of their prime targets.  Though technically not a union, it was fairly closely aligned with the Democratic Party and the GOP has done everything conceivable to weaken it.   Yes, some union members will still get sucked into the culture war bullshit put out by GOP pols, but the presence of a union makes it significantly more likely workers will vote their economic interests, which usually are  more aligned with Dem priorities.

  73. 73.

    Fake Irishman

    @Kay:

    Yep. Union contracts limit the gender gap in wages as well. Still room for some shenanigans in promotions, but routine step increases and clear criteria for advancement/tenure etc do crack down on bias.

  74. 74.

    Fake Irishman

    @Hoodie:

    In places like Texas, Georgia and North Carolina, even modest increases in union density spell trouble for Republicans, as each those states are politically  competitive or noticeably drifting in that direction. Get two plants in Fort Worth and flip or energize a few thousand voters among workers or their families would be enough to flip Tarrant County permanently blue.

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