UAW president Shawn Fain gives Labor Day speech in Detroit
UAW president Shawn Fain takes the stage after the Labor Day parade in front of Michigan Central in Detroit.
In an online town hall, UAW President Shawn Fain celebrated the union’s last contracts with the Detroit 3 automakers.Fain said the union is ready to fight for pensions and retirement health care for all of its members in 2028, when contracts expire.Fain also addressed tariffs and his stance on U.S. President Donald Trump during the event.
There are just under 1,000 days until the United Auto Workers’ 2023 contracts expire at the Detroit Three automakers. Shawn Fain is already applying pressure.
In a livestreamed town hall address on Thursday, Sept. 11, Fain gave a 45-minute speech regarding the current status and the future of the union. Fain, speaking from the Solidarity House in Detroit, made the union’s next demands clear for when its contracts expire with Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis: He wants pensions and retirement health care for all UAW members.
“Let me be crystal clear on this,” Fain said. “On May Day (May 1) 2028, the UAW will not settle for anything less than retiree health care and a real pension.”
The UAW president laid out his game plan for the next bargaining process and made a promise not to back down on restoring pensions and health care for retirees — union benefits that were lost during the Great Recession and collapse of the American auto industry.
“Our goal is to win retirement health care back for every single worker. Our goal is to give every worker a pension that isn’t at risk of evaporating when the market crashes,” Fain said.
As it stands now, UAW members who began in 2008 or before have a pension and retirement health care, while UAW employees who joined after 2008 don’t.
“That’s not solidarity. That’s not justice, and it’s not the future of the UAW,” Fain said. “Ending retirement tiers will be the defining fight of 2028.”
Fain’s firebrand style at the bargaining table drove the widely publicized and largely celebrated 2023 contracts at the Detroit Three automakers. During the speech, Fain claimed that the contracts have produced 17% wage increases for employees at the companies since the day of ratification.
Now he wants more.
The gains of the 2023 bargaining period, Fain said, mark the beginning of a resurgence for the union, which has hemorrhaged membership and power from its heyday, peaking at over 1 million members during the 20th century. In recent years, with about 375,000 active members, the union has come under scrutiny following an ugly corruption scandal that landed several former presidents in prison and placed the UAW under federal monitorship.
A small portion of UAW members, unconvinced of Fain’s leadership, have been trying to bring him up on administrative charges, alleging financial mismanagement and corruption. That process hit a roadblock last week, though members plan to continue the process.
Fain, though, said he is dedicated to reshaping the perception of the UAW.
“Two years ago, they said the UAW was irrelevant. They said we couldn’t win. They said we couldn’t organize, and they said we couldn’t strike,” he said of the 2023 so-called Stand Up Strike, which resulted in gains UAW leaders celebrate. “Here we are, two years later, leading the labor movement.”
Fain said that from 2023 to 2025, the UAW has added 75,000 members, touting several successful organizing drives at workplaces across the country, including Cornell University and the BlueOval SK battery plant in Kentucky.
Throughout the talk, Fain also addressed the Trump administration.
During a question-and-answer segment, Fain received questions from UAW members. In one instance, Fain read two questions back to back: One asked why he supports Democrats, the other asked him why he supports President Donald Trump.
Fain has both stumped for Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris during the 2024 election and also come out in tentative support of tariffs imposed by Trump, a Republican.
“There is no UAW political party,” Fain said. “We aren’t Democrats, we aren’t Republicans, we are trade unionists.”
Fain remained consistent in his position on tariffs, saying he believes strategic tariffs can protect American manufacturing while harshly criticizing the Trump administration for its execution of mass deportations, tax cuts for the wealthy and the stripping of labor protection bodies of the government, like the National Labor Relations Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“I’ve always said we’ll call balls and strikes,” Fain said. “From day one.”
Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.