Dear all,
A message from me on the upcoming UAW election. Brandon, the former
president of our local HGSU-UAW, is running for the position of UAW Region
9A Director. He is the ONLY higher ed worker in the race. It’s imperative
we have folks like him at the top levels of the UAW to represent our labor
movement. If you have any questions about the election or the reform
movement in the UAW, feel free to email me.
—————-
I am writing to you in my personal capacity as a HGSU-UAW member to endorse
our former president and fellow historian Brandon Mancilla, the only higher
ed worker in the race, for UAW Region 9A Director, along with the entire
UAW Members United Slate backed by Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD),
the rank-and-file caucus that led the campaign last year for One Member,
One Vote. I’m asking you to vote for Brandon Mancilla, Shawn Fain for
President, Margaret Mock for Secretary-Treasurer, Rich Boyer and Mike Booth
for Vice President. You should have already or will soon receive a ballot
in the mail for the UAW International Executive Board elections. Fill out
and send it back when you get it!
While you might not hear about how the UAW affects our local union too
often, the leadership and policies of the UAW do have a big impact on our
ability to organize and win strong contracts.
How does this affect us?
-
We need an ambitious national academic labor movement. We haven’t been
able to build a movement with other higher ed unions in the UAW, which has
impacted our ability to win stronger contracts. Established leaders
actively inhibited building connections across different academic worker
unions, but we know we are stronger when we fight together. Our regional
director could be building out spaces for communication across
universities, and a regional organizing committee for us to build strong
campaigns together, but they never have - these are core components of
Brandon’s platform.
-
The UAW can set higher standards in higher ed contracts. To be able to
win massive improvements in our contracts such as cost of living
adjustments, real recourse, better health insurance, we need to be
building a movement that has broad, collective power on campus. Our current
top-down UAW leadership has no interest in this and has proven to be
incapable of doing so even if they wanted to.
-
Strong, democratic unions are a crucial part of climate justice. While
reducing internal combustion engines is an important piece in climate
change mitigation, there are more than 150,000 autoworkers in the UAW whose
livelihood is fundamentally threatened by electric vehicle production, and
the incumbent UAW leadership has no plan for how to protect workers and
ensure a just transition. Brandon Mancilla and the Members United slate
have a real plan <https://uawd.org/organizing/> for a worker-led
transition; voting for them is your chance to influence U.S.-wide
industrial policy.
Last year, HGSU voted 97.5% in favor of One Member, One Vote, the highest
of any local in the UAW. It’s important to make sure that our elected
leaders support empowering every single member of the UAW through our right
to vote. The current leadership - running as the Curry Solidarity Team,
including Brandon’s opponent, the incumbent director Bev Brakeman - opposed
your right to vote in this election.
Our home region in New England, Region 9A, had the lowest turnout of any
region in the UAW, but the highest percentage of support for One Member,
One Vote. This means there is general enthusiasm for democracy and reform,
but we also have to turn out!
Preserving our ability to enact change in the UAW will depend on everybody
checking their mailbox and taking two minutes to bubble in the Members’
United Slate with Brandon Mancilla for Region 9A director and then sending
your ballot back in the mail as soon as you are able (ideally the day you
receive it).
Solidarity,
Kenneth
--
Kenneth Alyass
PhD Candidate
Harvard University Department of History
Graduate Fellow at the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History
kalyass(a)g.harvard.edu
https://scholar.harvard.edu/kennethalyass