“The Working Class Is the Arsenal of Democracy” by Shawn Fain, Jacobin, April 24 https://jacobin.com/2024/04/shawn-fain-uaw-working-class
*United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain: “We win by giving working-class people the tools, the inspiration, and the courage to stand up for themselves.”* *On the night of Friday, April 19, the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced the results of its National Labor Relations Board election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Workers there voted 73 percent in favor of joining the UAW — a historic victory for the union after two failed drives there, in 2014 and 2019.Last weekend, fresh off the victory in Chattanooga, UAW president Shawn Fain gave the closing speech at the 2024 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Jacobin is pleased to publish his remarks here. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.* Something’s happening in this country, something we haven’t seen in a long, long time: the working class is standing up. . . . For decades, corporate greed has threatened to destroy the working class. Workers are told that their rights end at the workplace door and told to shut up or starve. For decades, workers have been led to believe there’s no other way. They’ve been led to believe that resistance is futile, that the class war that has been waged on us for decades is unwinnable. Workers have been led to believe that working-class people don’t have the power, the will, or the courage to fight back. Today, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Chicago, Illinois, we say: Hell no! We say the working class is the arsenal of democracy and the workers are the liberators. The one thing I’ve seen throughout this fight, and the one thing we know, is that it’s not a CEO that’s going to save us. It’s not a president that’s going to save us. It’s not me and it’s not you — it’s us, and it’s a united working class. That’s how we’re going to win. # # # -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30067): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30067 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105718455/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
