The UAW just finished negotiating a new contract with the "Big 3" auto manufacturers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (fka Fiat Chrysler). The contract includes things such as a 25% wage increase for all UAW workers, return of Cost of Living Adjustment, removal of some of the wage tier systems, higher wages for temporary and new workers, bonuses to 401k and pension plans, and the right to strike over plant closures.
The new contract is going to expire on April 30, 2028. Shawn Fain is asking for other unions to prepare for a strike at the same time so that all unions involved will have greater collective bargaining power.
In the longer video Shawn Fain says:
We demanded a longer contract because one of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we've never organized before. When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won't just be with the "Big 3" but instead with the "Big 5" or "Big 6".
I believe Shawn Fain is alluding that the UAW is attempting to unionize other car manufacturer companies in the next 5 years.
Well, the past decade has been full of Twitter leftists "declaring" an imminent general strike with predictably zero results. So if this actually materializes, it will be a great accomplishment despite taking four and a half years.
I love this because it's like setting up a prophecy. Remember that 2012 Mayan doomsday thing? People actually thought we were gonna get raptured or some shit. Setting up this strike this far in advance only increases the likelihood that it'll actually happen, imo. Especially since - even here on Hexbear - any other time anyone mentions the concept of a general strike, a fuckload of naysayers start aggressively shredding its wings before it can even get off the ground.
It's partly because "people mentioning a general stroke" is always just "a bunch of people mentioning a general strike" online without the support of a single actual union.
I get very skeptical of calls for a general strike that don’t have any contacts in or support from a single union. A wildcat strike is already a long shot gamble. A wildcat general strike needs real specific conditions that we aren’t even close to.
This is the point. He's telling the auto industry "look at how we won and how much it cost you. We're gonna win again next time too. Up to you how much it'll cost you next time."
Nothing wrong with this strategy. Strikes are the last resort. It's better to avoid a strike in the first place, and you can avoid the strike of the company is already aware of and afraid of your worker power.
Fain and the UAW has very clearly demonstrated their worker power this year. He's signalling that he'll do it again next time and giving the auto makers a way out.
2028 also means pressure on the next presidential campaigns, which they've shown that they care about. Every possible candidate will be weaker in the next election cycle compared to our current race, which is the incumbent versus a person half the republican party thinks is literally the incumbent.
It's been a struggle to fight off the business union shitters scattered around union leadership. In ours, we had some rather nasty intra-union conflict in the recent strike we did. I'm glad we got Shawn Fain elected though. There was a pretty big institutional push against him where I'm at, but we managed to organize past it.