The UAW Strike May Have Finally Set Us Up for a General Strike
The UAW Strike May Have Finally Set Us Up for a General Strike
Who’s up for a little class warfare?
The UAW won’t be fighting its next battle alone, either. One of the most interesting aspects of the new UAW tentative agreements at Ford, GM, and Stellantis is that they are all timed to expire on April 30, 2028. If those contracts expire without reaching a satisfactory new deal, the UAW will be ready to strike on May Day, otherwise known as International Workers Day.
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What’s more, the UAW hopes it won't be hitting the picket lines alone. Fain has called on other unions to time their contracts to expire during the same period and “flex [their] collective muscles.” No, you’re not imagining things — the head of a major US labor union is calling on the rest of the movement to come together and start planning a general strike.
DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
-Mario Savio, In a speech during a protest with his university at the time, but the words always seem appropriate to these situations.
In this case I attach free to "free to live without fear that losing your job means losing your life."
Sampled well in linkin park's wretches and kings
Also inspired the title of an album by Noun (Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females side project) : https://marissapaternoster.bandcamp.com/album/throw-your-body-on-the-gears-and-stop-the-machine-with-your-blood-2
Unlike Vogue, Teen Vogue has been pretty political ever since one of their writers (Lauren Duca, who is pretty cool) argued with Tucker Carlson on his show in 2016.
It is, surprisingly, one of the better publications to get news and commentary from nowadays, because nobody really expect it.
Wow I had no idea! Kinda like buzzfeed news was legit af for awhile there
I laugh every time I see teenvogue.com under a headline link because it's not where I'd expect quality but I know it will be. I take it as a sign teens are becoming more politically active, which is the only way progressives win. It makes me just a tiny bit hopeful.
That's a really well-written article, the complete opposite of a fluff piece.
I encourage folks to go read it.
In Teen Vogue of all places.
Teen vogue, believe it or not, has a decent publishing track record:
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/pretrial-detention-punishes-poor
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/clarence-thomas-luxury-trips-gifts-corruption
Right? I wouldn't have known about it if I hadn't stumbled across the author on BlueSky.
Teen Vogue's op-eds are usually incredibly well done. It feels like they've stepped up as a quality voice for young progressives. I love it and wish they'd been that deep in my teen years lol
I went and read it (skimmed) after reading your comment, and I completely agree. This is a very well thought out piece.
I hope Mr. Fain keeps good security around him. His actions are challenging the current order and threatening both the billionaire and political classes. There is no doubt in his mind that there are members of those classes working out how to make him disappear from the public stage, one way or another. He would not be the first labor leader in this nation to come to a violent end at the hands of corporate or political leaders.
I tend to find calls for a general strike laughable and unrealistic, so believe me when I say this is an amazing article. The general strike being referred to here would be a targeted effort by some unions spanning industries. Fain cleverly surmises that would bring the country to a halt. He recognizes that you don't need a ton of people. You don't need much to clog up the works, and I think it's actually better this way. Other sectors and industries will gradually be effected by those striking, which creates even more pressure for companies to concede to union demands. It's a domino effect.
The author deserves a lot of credit here. He isn't just waffling, there's a lot of substance. Other progressive publications would do well to view this as a prime example. This author has written a very logical and sensible article, where others tend to write fluff pieces which feel like campaigns and preaching.
It seems more and more lately that organized labor is the only viable route for meaningful political change. Recasting the individualistic neoliberal interpretations of social justice in to the context of labor organizing and agitation seems like the right message to be sending right now, and not white-washing reactionary aspects of that history either but explaining how they undermined it.
The challenge in the present day is that this really requires going beyond culture war factions for greater common cause, working with people you may disagree yet have shared material interests with, with the hopes that the effort itself will absolve these barriers and lead to a better class solidarity. I don't know if this is possible in the US right now with the rise of the fascist impulses on the right, is it possible for the left to acknowledge the structural stresses pushing people in that direction and offer a more appealing solution? The liberal strategy of dismissing those structural causes only seems to be further enabling the right. "An injury to one is an injury to all" may be too radical a notion for this context, and you can bet the bosses are happy about this working class division. I refuse to accept the workers cant find each other again. Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one.
This article makes it sound realistic. It would be several parallel strikes by unions across various industries. Leadership is always the struggle for these causes, and the plan discussed here is handling that perfectly.
Oh yeah this action specifically is totally doable, I mean the broader political context and labor as a political faction that breaks through the partisan culture war.
After reading the article I not only signed up for Teen Vogue's political newsletter, I signed up for the United Autoworkers Union newsletter too and I'm not even part of a Union!
If you enjoyed the article check out a book by the same author. Fight like hell, the untold history of American labor
$20 on the IWW's website
A revelatory and inclusive history of the American labor movement, from independent journalist and Teen Vogue labor columnist Kim Kelly.
There's more info in the description at the link for those interested. I might pick this up at my library to give a read.
If I didn't already pay union dues I'd be tempted to join IWW or something similar, although it's more an advocacy group at this point. Also been happy to see Jacobin covering the labor movement.