Shawn Fain, who took over the United Auto Workers union in April, has demanded increased government subsidies for the auto industry and resurrected the class warfare rhetoric that the labor union abandoned decades ago.
A relative unknown less than a year ago, Mr. Fain is now one of the most prominent figures in the labor movement as he oversees the first-ever strike against the three Detroit automakers. He aims to dramatically reshape wage scales and working conditions to forever change automobile manufacturing.
Emerging as an underdog in the race for UAW president, Mr. Fain was elected in a runoff as a reform candidate with a fiery liberal message.
He pledged a more militant approach at the bargaining table. He told UAW members that their “one and only true enemy” is multibillion-dollar corporations that refuse to share profits.
That rhetoric has carried over into the UAW strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Mr. Fain has cast the strike, which began Sept. 15, as a battle between blue-collar workers and wealthy elites and has punctuated his discourse with vehement attacks on the wealthy.
Stellantis is an Italian-American conglomerate that owns Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, Peugeot, Citroen and Alfa Romeo.
SEE ALSO: Ford says deal ‘close’ with striking UAW
The strike expanded Friday to another Ford plant and GM plant, where 7,000 more workers walked off the job. That brings the total to 25,000 of the UAW’s 146,000 workers on strike at 43 locations nationwide.
Mr. Fain has said that anyone who becomes a billionaire represents the failure of U.S. economic policy.
“Billionaires, in my opinion, don’t have a right to exist,” he told UAW workers last month. “The very existence of billionaires shows us that we have an economy that is working for the benefit of the few and not the many. … It feels like we’ve gone so far backward that we have to fight just to have the 40-hour workweek back. Why is that? So another a—hole can make enough money to shoot himself to the moon?”
Mr. Fain has denied that he is engaging in class warfare with such impassioned remarks.
Jon Melrod, a former UAW worker who also served as a local union leader, said that’s exactly what it is.
“It is class warfare,” he said. “The gap between those at the top and the majority of people in the United States who don’t have access to millions of dollars feel like they are in a class war and have to take back their humanity and working conditions in which they could thrive.”
Mr. Fain’s rhetoric echoes that of legendary UAW President Walter Reuther, who led the union from 1946 to 1970. The son of a German socialist, Reuther received an early education in socialism from his father, including a visit to Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs in prison. He later married a socialist activist and began a career with the UAW.
Although he worked to purge communists and socialists from the UAW, Reuther used his position to champion national health care, economic redistribution and government-backed job security. All were radical ideas in postwar America.
After Reuther’s death, Leonard Woodcock became president of the UAW. His father was also a socialist. Woodcock was considered a rising member of the Socialist Party until he resigned in 1940 in a dispute over whether the U.S. should remain neutral in the war in Europe.
The UAW’s leadership and ties to socialism date back to the late 1930s when Homer Martin, an avowed socialist, ran the union.
Although labor experts say Mr. Fain’s rhetoric doesn’t rise to the level of socialism, it marks the first time a UAW president has depicted union efforts as a battle of the classes since socialists were running it.
“Under the class of capitalism, the owning class is trying to maximize profit at the expense of the working class,” Mr. Melrod said. “It really is the class division that Shawn Fain is seeking to lessen and make more equitable.”
Paul Clark, who teaches labor relations at Pennsylvania State University, said the recent UAW presidents who didn’t engage in the aggressive, liberal rhetoric of their predecessors were the outliers, not Mr. Fain.
“This is not a big change for the UAW,” he said. “You didn’t hear this from the UAW of the last 10 or 20 years, but you don’t have to go back too far to see presidents who had this populist message.”
The UAW abandoned its hard-core liberal message in the 1970s amid waning influence and several hits to its reputation. Membership declined because of factory closings, global competition and cheaper labor outside the U.S. As the union’s clout diminished, workers endured contract concessions and layoffs.
Compounding the UAW’s problems is a corruption scandal over the past decade that has resulted in convictions of former UAW presidents for stealing union funds for personal use.
The scandal led to a new election, supervised by a court-appointed monitor, for UAW president earlier this year. Mr. Fain’s campaign raised eyebrows with his fervent far-left rhetoric. He later raised eyebrows by refusing to shake hands with automaker CEOs at the start of bargaining, a decadeslong tradition, and throwing the Stellantis offer into a trash can before walking out of a meeting.
“It left [automakers’] management completely flabbergasted. It was a total shock to them because they weren’t ready for someone to talk about class war,” Mr. Melrod said. “Fain tapped into exactly how the workers feel — resentful.”
Yet some of the UAW’s current demands would make their World War II-era socialist leaders bristle. One is Mr. Fain’s demand for autoworkers to get 40 hours of pay for a 32-hour workweek.
Mr. Fain and his team say the demand is a callback to the UAW’s roots as a liberal labor group that fought for improved quality of life. The proposal has stalled negotiations with the automakers, which say it would hurt productivity, make them less profitable and limit what they can pay employees.
“Reuther wanted the companies to do well. He wanted workers to participate in automakers’ profits, and as part of that participation, he argued that the workers owed the company productivity. Reuther would tie wage increases to productivity so the union and company could prosper simultaneously,” said Marick Masters, who teaches labor relations at Wayne State University.
Mr. Clark said the automakers played into Mr. Fain’s hands by doling out massive salaries to their CEOs and other top executives.
According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, General Motors CEO Mary Barra made nearly $29 million last year, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made about $24.8 million and Ford CEO Jim Farley made about $21 million.
The median CEO pay package for S&P 500 companies was $14.5 million last year. Three automobile manufacturers earn roughly 300 times the median or average autoworker.
The average UAW member made about $28 per hour last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a wage increase of about $1 per hour from 2021.
Not all workers make $28 per hour. Some make more, and others earn far less. Supplemental workers at Stellantis, for example, earn $15.78 to $20 per hour, according to company data.
The UAW is striking for a more than 40% pay increase over the next four years, among other demands, which include restoring workers’ retirement benefits and 40 hours of pay for a 32-hour workweek.
They say the proposed pay increase only slightly exceeds the combined 40% increase in CEO compensation over the past four years at the three Detroit automakers.
Yet a review of SEC filings shows that the CEOs of GM, Stellantis and Ford, despite their massive salaries, did not exceed pay raises of 40% in the past four years.
Ms. Barra earned 34% more in 2022 than in 2018, Mr. Farley earned 21% more than Ford’s previous CEO did that year and Mr. Tavares made about 24% less last year than his predecessor.
Still, Mr. Tavares earns 365 times as much as the average Stellantis employee.
The automakers have argued that high salaries are justified because they are tied to a company’s performance, and most of their compensation is tied to corporate stock and bonus incentives. For example, Ms. Barra’s base salary is $2 million.
“Fain is trying to remind people of the problem of income inequality, which has grown tremendously over the years. His rhetoric is consistent with the UAW traditions and culture,” Mr. Clark said.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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