Labor Pains: Because Being in a Union can be Painful

Shawn Fain’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

Last year, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union was riding a wave of positive press in the wake of its high-profile strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers… 12 months later, it seems the union and its president Shawn Fain have been thrown off their high horse.

The union’s attempts to escape its corrupt past and unionize new plants have taken serious setbacks this year, and recent layoffs have made the UAW’s “record contracts” with the Big Three lose much of their luster. 

Last summer, the UAW’s court-appointed corruption monitor released a shocking report detailing an investigation into allegations that the UAW Presidents Office was engaged in misconduct and retaliation against other members of the UAW executive board. To make matters worse, the UAW was also accused by the monitor of withholding documents needed for the investigation. Eventually, a federal court needed to step in to force Fain to hand over the documents, and a new report by the monitor this month announced yet another investigation into the UAW’s leadership.

The UAW’s campaign to expand its membership in the South isn’t having much better luck, despite the $40 million committed to it. 

The unionization campaign ran into a brick wall after a humiliating defeat at Mercedes-Benz’s Vance, Alabama plant last May. Since the defeat, the UAW has failed to unionize a single one of the Southern autoplants on its hit list and has made no public announcements of unionization progress in the South.  

It’s no surprise that autoworkers are rejecting the union’s invitations, given how Fain’s members have been treated under the UAW’s “record contracts.” Over the past year, tens of thousands of UAW members have been laid off at Detroit’s Big Three, many of them permanently. At Stellantis’s Warren Truck Assembly Plant alone, over 1,000 UAW members were laid off last October – around a third of the plant’s workforce. 

Even the UAW members who managed to keep their jobs are reporting lower overall pay as they’re scheduled for fewer hours to offset the higher pay rate from the contract. 

Fain recently characterized his term as president as “the most successful year and a half in the history of this union.” Thousands of laid off UAW members likely disagree. After a year like this it would be more appropriate for Shawn Fain to change his name to Shawn Fail.

Categories: UAW