UAWD: A Necessary Ending

Dianne Feeley

15 September 2023, Detroit: UAW members launched their strike with a rally against the Detroit Three and then marched past GM headquarters. Photo: Jim West

UNITE ALL WORKERS for Democracy (UAWD) voted to dissolve at its general membership meeting on April 27, 2025. Many observers may be surprised that an organization which had made a unique contribution to the United Auto Workers (UAW) came to an impasse within six years of its founding.

Arguing in favor of dissolving, the UAWD Steering Committee majority wrote:

“We have been deeply reflecting on the internal divisions within UAWD, which have become stark and entrenched, especially over the past year. It is clear to us that the coalition of members that came together to achieve UAWD’s greatest successes can no longer work together toward common goals. Members on both sides of these divisions have pointed to the existential problem in UAWD: There are two different visions for the kind of organization we need to build to advance a more militant union.”

They went on to cite:

• The disconnect between 56% of caucus members being from higher education and legal services sectors, representing approximately 25% of the UAW, but only turning in 3% of the mail-in votes for UAW officers.

• How this disparity is reflected in the online general membership meetings, which tended to be dominated by professional workers in the higher education and legal services sectors. These meetings were overturning decisions made by the Steering Committee, who reflect the union’s sectoral balance and garnered super-majority support in elections;

• Pitched battles at Steering Committee meetings, where the level of disagreement prevented the conduct of important business;

• Consequent declines in new member growth, from an average of over 20 a month to fewer than five most months;

• Most importantly, the withdrawal of members from the caucus, often citing a toxic culture and lack of focus on the issues they care about most. This loss of members was disproportionately in manufacturing.

In conclusion, the seven-person majority on the Steering Committee wrote:

“We encourage experimentation with different organizing approaches, but we cannot pursue such different visions under the same roof. This is why we propose bringing a clean and formal end to UAWD….

“We believe there is a positive path forward. Our union needs an organization that is laser-focused on building a strong grassroots network of shop-floor organizers, preparing for the 2028 fights at the Big Three, and building on the new UAW’s progressive and militant direction. In the long run, only an organized membership will safeguard the UAW against falling into the hands of complacent or corrupt leadership.”

A four-person minority on the Steering Committee opposed the motion to dissolve, arguing that it was procedurally flawed and politically off base. They maintained that a motion to dissolve had to be considered as an amendment to the bylaws, requiring two meetings and a two-thirds vote. They disputed the assertion that the UAWD had become dysfunctional.

They claimed that supporters of dissolution were, at best, union reformers limited to bread-and-butter issues, and at worst careerists. They saw differences beginning with the decision taken at a UAWD general membership meeting “to stay neutral on the Big 3 Tentative Agreement after Shawn Fain argued that UAWD should recommend a ‘yes’ vote and ‘own the victory.’”

UAWD in Context

Formed in 2019 to challenge the Administration Caucus (AC) hold on the union, UAWD sought a membership referendum to replace the longstanding practice of electing top officials at caucus-controlled conventions. Since 1947, when the Reuther caucus consolidated its control over the union, it dominated the International Executive Board (IEB) and welded its power through caucus discipline.

If in the beginning the AC’s social democratic perspective secured decent contracts, nonetheless oppositional caucuses arose to challenge its silence on racial and sex discrimination as well as health and safety violations. The 1979-83 recession and restructuring of the auto industry in response to Japanese competition increased corporate pressure on the union.

Faced with management demands for concessions, the AC decided it needed to “sell” workers on adopting a variant of the Toyota production system. This took off through the “joint” training programs that each of the Detroit Three set up with the union, supposedly to provide job security. Known as “management-by-stress,” teams of workers were trained to help management eliminate bottlenecks and combine jobs to continually speed up production.

The biggest challenge to the AC leadership arose in the late 1980s when Region 5 Assistant Director Jerry Tucker encouraged locals to organize contract fights. Two big locals successfully resisted concessions through a strategy of “work-to-rule.” These victories inspired other locals and the movement spread, adopting the name “New Directions.”

Forced to break with the AC in order to campaign for regional director, Jerry Tucker won — only to be brought down by the AC. The New Direction movement was eventually snuffed out.

What was distinctive about caucuses through New Directions was the presence both of workers who opposed concessions and local leaders willing to buck the AC to fight for a better working conditions. Subsequent oppositional caucuses, however, were unable to build this structure. The handful of anti-concession convention delegates dwindled to little more than a network.

The demand for direct elections to the IEB had long been the cry of oppositional caucuses so it was amazing that within two years of its founding, UAWD won that battle. But the path we took was quite different from the one we’d outlined for ourselves.

UAWD launched the campaign for “one member, one vote” by bringing a resolution for a special convention to our locals. The initial results were promising, but we ran out of time and pledged to begin again. Then a Department of Justice investigation charged UAW officials, including the sitting president as well as his predecessor, with corruption.

The arrest, sentencing and imprisonment of these top officials, all members of the AC, revealed the extent of the internal rot. Disgust was widespread. The media reported vacations prolonged on the UAW’s dime, with extravagant dinners and $2000 cigars to celebrate passage of concessionary contracts we were forced to live under.

A federal monitor was appointed to oversee the union. In January 2021 UAW president Ray Curry signed a six-year consent decree with the Department of Justice. It outlined the monitor’s several tasks, including:

• to investigate past and current misconduct;

• to aid the union in developing procedures that would prevent future corruption;

• to see that the union held a referendum that would revisit how to elect top officials;

• to supervise the process if members chose direct elections.

The UAW Executive Board put into motion the mechanics of a mail-in referendum, but did the bare minimum to publicize the process. For our part, UAWD members and a two-person staff carried out a vigorous campaign.

Using the post office to conduct the referendum vote was a novelty, and many members failed to notice the announcements and ballot amidst their junk mail. Of the slightly more than one million eligible voters, only 140,586 returned their ballots. Of those voting, 63.7% voted for direct elections; the monitor instructed the IEB to amend the constitution.

With this victory, UAWD members decided to put together a slate to run for the upcoming election. We did not have a pool of UAWD members who had participated in the one member, one vote campaign and could step up to be candidates. Our candidates were not a ready-made team but rather seven eligible UAW members who could be coaxed to run on our platform: No Corruption! No Concessions! No Tiers!

The heart of the 2022-23 campaign lay in building a group of volunteers who could talk with coworkers, raise funds, make phone calls, leaflet plant gates and offices. We weren’t sure we could win even one seat, but if we did, we hoped to win two so that there would be another IEB member to second a motion. With the AC running candidates for all 14 positions, we were able to run half that.

Despite being the underdogs, all UAWD candidates won — as did one independent! But even fewer members returned their mail-in ballot — 106,790. The runoff for president was close, with less than 500 votes between UAWD-backed presidential candidate Shawn Fain and AC candidate Ray Curry. Fain was sworn in as president on March 26, 2023, the day before the UAW bargaining convention opened. (Vote totals from monitor’s reports.)

Although our slate won, we lacked the base of reform locals similar to what Jerry Tucker had when he was elected Region 5 Director. With 250 members in a million-member union, UAWD lacked a network of shop floor activists and local officials.

The New UAW’s “Stand Up Strike”

23 October 2023 – At Stellantis’ Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), a UAW member carries a drum that compares the union’s 1937 Sit Down strike to its 2023 Stand Up strike. Photo: Jim West

The new IEB convened the March 27-29, 2023 bargaining convention where the delegates, elected the previous year, were almost all members of the AC. UAWD distributed a daily leaflet to the delegates, introduced resolutions from the floor and held open meetings. This time we had members speaking from the stage, but delegates weren’t flocking to join UAWD. However, with the Detroit Three contract negotiations about to open, there was new energy in the air.

Formal contract negotiations were traditionally kicked off with the UAW president shaking hands with the CEOs. But this time Fain declined to shake their hands, instead going to GM, Ford and Stellantis plants in Metro Detroit to shake hands with members.

Traditionally, as negotiations moved along, the UAW would pick one company as the strike target. Once that contract was negotiated, the union would move on to the second target, demanding a pattern contract.

What tools could the new UAW leadership use to prepare itself? While the United National Caucus had called for striking all three corporations, during the 1973 GM strike UAW president Leonard Woodcock deployed ministrikes, lasting one to three days, at key plants. This disruptive 67-day strike resulted in an historic contract.

Indeed, the “Stand Up Strike” combined both tactics. Beginning on September 15, 2023 with 13,000 strikers across the three corporations, the strike expanded each week in direct response to negotiations. At weekly informational Facebook meetings, Fain, occasionally accompanied by the vice presidents in charge of Ford, Stellantis or GM, would report on the week’s meetings.

This represented a sea change, not only providing the membership with up-to-date progress on demands but in pressuring and shaming recalcitrant corporations. Fain would then announce which plants were next to go out or if there had been big steps forward, which corporation might be spared a week.

In the past, negotiations had been shrouded in secrecy, supposedly to protect the union position but effectively keeping the membership in the dark until the tentative agreement was announced. The new approach delighted the membership, who eagerly awaited their turn to join the strike.

This strategy was also helpful in minimizing the rate at which the strike funds were being tapped. As negotiations entered their sixth week, only a third of all Detroit Three UAW members were on strike. Rumors circulated that the most profitable plants were next to go out. That’s when Fain reported company negotiators blinked.

The novel tactics of the Stand Up Strike resulted in a tentative agreement better than most anticipated. Wages increased 25% over four+ years; cost-of-living from the previous decade was reinstated, tiered wages ended, and full-time “temps” became permanent hires after 90 days. GM even agreed to recognize the UAW in the battery plants it was planning on opening.

Of course we didn’t win all our demands. There were still draconian absentee policies, and those hired at the lower tiers continued to be excluded from pensions and post-employment health care. Retirees got a small bonus but took a step back because retirees were responsible for paying Medicaid Part B. Most importantly, the demand to address work/life balance disappeared.

While most UAWD members felt that the expanding strike increased pressure on corporations week after week, a few had been critical. They felt more could have been won by striking all plants and remaining out until the agreements were passed.

After discussion, UAWD voted not to make a recommendation on the contracts, which passed in November 2023 by two-thirds at Ford and Stellantis and by 53% at GM. Little did I realize some UAWD members viewed this decision as a dividing line.

Almost immediately after the contracts were ratified the UAW leadership announced its intention to unionize the whole industry. By organizing the non-union plants primarily in the South, this could double UAW’s auto sector membership.

Volkswagen workers in Tennessee won their vote to join the UAW just five months later. But soon afterward, the union election at Mercedes in Alabama was defeated by a large margin. More than a year later, Volkswagen workers are still without a contract. Momentum has dissipated.

When the Stand Up Strike took off, locals on strike put up 24/7 picket lines at all plant gates and set up food pantries. Still, the majority of the membership was on standby. While some workers at nearby non-striking locals dropped off supplies or joined picket lines, that was limited.

Solidarity actions did take off across locals when strikers at the Stellantis jeep plant in Toledo organized a caravan to the Ford Michigan Assembly plant. The following week Michigan Assembly workers drove to the Toledo complex. Other strikers adopted this solidarity action including Michigan’s Region 1. Led by a motorcycle brigade, they toured striking Metro Detroit plants.

While before and during the strike, Fain’s weekly updates were widely discussed, similar sessions could have been the basis for mobilizing locals once the contract was signed to discuss how to implement what had been won, but that didn’t happen. In reality a contract is more of a benchmark than a victory.

When the UAW leadership didn’t call on the membership to defend what had just been won, members went back to their “normal” lives. Although the UAWD membership agreed it was necessary to turn to local work, we didn’t prioritize preparation for the corporate attacks.

Quickly UAWD What’s App chats were overwhelmed with complaints about the unavailability of chief stewards/committeepeople to write grievances. That was particularly true at Stellantis plants, where management was aggressive.

The one bright spot was the jeep plant in Toledo, where UAWD members did respond to the layoff of over 300 “supplemental” workers. Aided by UAWD staff, they wrote up a petition signed by 600 (with another 700 signatures from other plants) and then planned a march during their first break to a management meeting. Interrupting the meeting, the marchers handed them the petition’s signatures page by page.

In the end most supplemental workers were rehired, but not with full seniority or back pay. Yet it was clear that the mobilization by their jeep coworkers led to this partial victory — one that could have been a model for workers at other Stellantis plants.

The top UAW leadership, perhaps because of the priority given to organizing the South, didn’t seem prepared for corporate pushback. With Stellantis moving ahead with layoffs and doubling down on absenteeism, Fain responded by replacing the vice president in charge and announced his intention to hold town hall meetings. Instead of calling for members to take on management, he scapegoated a fellow IEB member.

Analyzing Victories, Moving Forward

With two successes under UAWD’s belt, some members concluded that we were a powerhouse. To exercise this presumed strength, they wanted to set up meetings between UAWD and the IEB officials we’d supported to deepen collaboration.

Others of us felt that the corruption scandal had created a vacuum we’d been able to fill. But having punched above our weight, now our task was to build real muscle in our locals.

This difference in evaluating UAWD’s strength led to a difference in prioritizing organizational and political tasks — even while we all verbally agreed to develop campaigns in locals. We didn’t take into account the fact that as long as we were working on the referendum and election, what sector of the union we came from didn’t matter. But in analyzing one’s daily working conditions and the diversity of the workforce, it matters a great deal.

In thinking about how we could tie our work together, I thought we might be able to have a health and safety campaign. Since this is one issue that is strikable even during the life of the contract, such a campaign could provide us with flexibility to meet the needs of each local while being broad enough to include everyone. It could involve filing grievances and direct actions that had the potential to lead to strikes.

We could also participate in organizing non-union plants by monitoring deliveries to locate parts coming from non-union plants. By enforcing quality control, we could put pressure on non-union companies and aid the unionization drive.

The goal as I saw it was to figure out how local work could be tied to a national project. But I confess I wasn’t focused on the specific issues facing Blue Cross, Blue Shield workers, nurses, state office workers or the higher ed/lawyer sectors. Without a national project, what purpose could UAWD serve?

UAWD staff prioritized helping members develop campaigns in manufacturing locals, and some workers subsequently joined UAWD. But in almost tripling our size, and even gaining a few elected officials, general membership meetings revealed that for every new manufacturing worker recruited there were several from graduate school locals.

The Turning Point

The AC had restricted access to IEB minutes, and this had been a bone of contention for some members — and still is. The February 2024 IEB meeting reportedly disciplined the highest-ranking Black woman ever elected as an IEB official (and a UAWD-backed candidate), secretary-treasurer Margaret Mock.

After receiving a report, the UAWD Steering Committee decided to weigh in on the IEB decision. They brought their resolution to the general membership meeting days later. It concluded that Mock had “repeatedly abused her authority and violated UAW policies.”

I presented a countermotion that UAWD should not take a position but — as far as we needed to comment — encourage mediation. Yet based on hearsay, the rush-to-judgment motion passed. In their hurry, the meeting failed to consider that judging an internal dispute might be inappropriate and even seen in this case as unconscious racism.

[On June 17, 2025, as the July-August Against the Current was going to press, the monitor submitted his 12th Monitor’s Report, which analyses the dispute and concludes Mock was “falsely accused of misconduct, and that therefore there was no basis for removing departments from her oversight or reassigning her board positions. The Monitor’s investigation further found that President Fain acted with illegitimate and retaliatory intent when he removed Mock’s departments and board assignments. For these reasons, Fain’s actions should be immediately reversed, with each of Mock’s departments and assignments reinstated.”]

Being fixated on IEB deliberations became a pattern. The new IEB, along with several other unions, responded to U.S. complicity in the Israeli war in Gaza by calling for a ceasefire. At that time the IEB voted to form a Divestment and Just Transition committee. Yet they didn’t reverse the anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) vote taken by the AC-dominated IEB several years before.

The rejection led to a concerted campaign to pass the BDS resolution and divest from Israeli bonds. This work was mostly organized by higher ed/legal service locals. UAWD set up a Palestine Solidarity and Peace Economy Committee that joined with UAWD members active in UAW Labor for Palestine. Despite producing a couple of online panel discussions, leaflets and a petition, this wasn’t organized as a broad campaign to explain the issue to the membership. (UAW Labor for Palestine states that the UAW holds at least $400,000 in Israeli Bonds. The UAW estimates that it has about $40,000 of Mutual Funds invested in Israeli bonds.)

Subsequently, the one manufacturing local where a BDS resolution did pass was the home local of UAWD chair Scott Houldieson. He and a core of UAWD members had successfully involved members in various social movement struggles over the years. And that history paid off when they raised the BDS resolution.

However, that valuable win was not mined for its lessons. Without discussion percolating in manufacturing locals and regions, UAWD passing resolutions didn’t amount to more than having us spin our wheels.

In fact, general membership meetings rushed through a number of resolutions without discussing how they could be integrated into ongoing work. By the January 2025 UAWD general membership meeting, a resolution was passed to instruct “our UAWD-endorsed IEB members to begin a program of directly educating rank-and-file weapons manufacturing workers about how they would ultimately benefit from a just transition to a peace economy.”

But where were the workers supposedly asking for direction? Was any IEB member able or willing to organize the program? It seemed as if our job was to issue marching orders.

Other resolutions trumpeted as important victories by the self-styled “class-struggle wing” included unendorsing two of the seven IEB officials we helped elect, calling for a replacement of the federal monitor, and demanding that UAWD staff not be allowed to express their opinions at meetings.

Perhaps legal and graduate student locals are more ideologically homogeneous than manufacturing locals. They seemed to assume that all UAW members would naturally agree with this bevy of resolutions. So, too, they assumed that if a resolution passed, everyone was bound to apply it — and would know how to implement it.

Maybe this is why they dismissed members who objected to prioritizing the BDS campaign. When one key activist said he couldn’t develop a Palestinian rights campaign at his workplace, he was written off. Whether his evaluation was correct or not, no one offered to discuss how he might raise the issue with at least a few coworkers.

Clearly, we faced a particular challenge in building a caucus made up of industrial workers and academic/legal workers. Academics and lawyers are skilled at working with words, whether it’s writing a resolution or speaking at meetings. This gave them a disproportionate role in UAWD — but there was no self-reflection about needing to listen or step back.

Given work schedules and family lives, industrial workers found it difficult to consistently attend meetings on a Sunday afternoon. Some called in to the meeting during their lunch break but had to get back to work. Further, if the meeting didn’t seem valuable, they were unlikely to prioritize coming back. UAWD meetings grew unpleasant, with challenges to the chair, parliamentary procedures and rancor. At the last several meetings, more than three-quarters of attendees were from higher ed/legal services.

What’s Inevitable?

It was not inevitable for UAWD general meetings and chats to turn poisonous, but avoiding that would have required a commitment to respecting a diversity of views. Instead, members who were interested in developing campaigns that resonated with coworkers were written off as only interested in bread-and-butter issues. While the division over passing resolutions and monitoring IEB decisions didn’t break down neatly between those working in plants versus those working in offices, there was a strong correlation.

As a solution to the impasse, one Steering Committee member proposed establishing a balance between manufacturing and non-manufacturing members for purposes of establishing a quorum. But the idea was never explored. Even if parity might have been a workable solution, it came too late in the process of UAWD’s unravelling. By that time accusations had destroyed the sense of trust necessary for cohesion.

Union caucuses aren’t so much built around a political program the way a socialist organization or workers’ party might be, but around key issues that can attract a broad layer of workers to accomplish a goal. It’s in the process of developing a plan with coworkers, evaluating and adjusting as the campaign progresses that we gain an understanding of our power to think and action as a class. This is the essence of a rank-and-file strategy.

Resulting from where we thought our energy should be focused, differences of opinion became toxic. In the end, a minority on the UAWD Steering Committee announced that they were the class-struggle wing, labeling others, including founding UAWD members, as “reformists.” Yet in building rank-and-file power, the critical issue isn’t the distinction between “revolutionaries” and “reformists” or between bread-and-butter issues vs. political issues, but how we participate with our coworkers in collective action.

Although those who voted to dissolve UAWD are painted with the brush of being only concerned with bread-and-butter issues, that charge is wide of its mark. At a time when approximately 40% of auto workers voted for Trump, our job is to find ways to initiate political discussions and re-establish solidarity. For example, when I wrote a resolution on immigration justice, my goal was not to build another plank in the UAWD program but to open a discussion with coworkers.

Given the number of resolutions written for that meeting, my motion was bundled together with several others and passed as “consensus” resolutions, without any discussion on implementation.

Being unable to see that the length of meetings or the barrage of resolutions as undemocratic — even harmful to the unity of the organization — the Steering Committee minority accused the UAWD majority of undemocratic practices. Specifically, the Steering Committee majority supposedly recruited “paper” members to pad the numbers. Yet the minority felt free to circulate a petition against UAWD’s dissolution on the Labor for Palestine signal chat, calling for signatures, noting when the membership meeting was and inviting non-members to sign up.

Some members still thought that despite the toxic environment UAWD should stick together and find a way forward. They felt that given the political situation, particularly with Trump in the White House, it was imperative for us to remain united — although frankly most didn’t regularly attend the exceedingly poisonous meetings.

Ultimately, the Steering Committee majority concluded that, while we share many similar goals, we could accomplish more if we were free to pursue organizing strategies that make sense to us. Those who want to play a watchdog role over the IEB should be free to do so, but not in our name.

Certainly, various IEB decisions are troubling to UAWD members. This includes continued disputes within the IEB, bureaucratic practices, and taking positions without input from members (such as all-out support of Democratic Party candidates in 2024 or support for Trump’s tariffs instead of building international solidarity).

The IEB team that UAWD successfully helped to elect seems to have fallen apart. This both increased the centrifugal pressure on UAWD and highlighted the need for an organization of activists with a strong base in the plants. Without building such an organization with a democratic culture rooted in locals, a bureaucracy will surely re-consolidate.

UAWD was in the right place at the right time to challenge the dominance of the AC. However, we lacked both the base of reform locals and a shared organizational vision.

We should be proud of our role but recognize that most oppositional caucuses have a limited shelf life. In the past, a UAW caucus developed a slogan to encapsulate its demands and established its presence in a local or two. Its leaflets and actions attracted others. Only later was the caucus able to link up and network across regions.

With UAWD dissolved, new caucuses will form around issues that concern the membership. Hopefully these caucuses will find ways of collaborating, as those who formed around “30 and Out” or “No Two Tiers” did. While today social media makes networking far more possible, base building remains key. We can also add the experience of UAWD to labor history. Central for labor activists will be understanding our diversity as we build unity in action.

July-August 2025, ATC 237