Editor’s Note: Below are excerpts from a Labor Day speech by United Autoworkers Union member Sean Crawford at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Detroit, MI on September 3, 2023. On September 14, 2023 the UAW contracts with the Big Three automakers expire. That is the deadline workers have given the company to come up with a better contract. Please hear Sean Crawford’s whole speech on Facebook at: https://bit.ly/45RxjdU
“At a time of record profits in the auto industry, they still have tiers and management is pushing to add more in the electrical vehicle transition . . . these companies are in it only for one kind of green, money, made at the expense of its employees . . . We only want what previous generations of auto workers took for granted, a family sustaining job and security in retirement, the ability to spend time with our friends and families without being worked to the bone. We want every electric vehicle, subsystems and Aramark worker to be equal under our master agreement. Our goal is to make everyone tier one in 2023, this is what all workers want. All those who sell their labor for a living want fair and equal treatment, good pay and benefits and retirement security.”
“The principles of industrial unionism are a unifying force for good and desperately need to be applied today. The moment is ripe for it. Wealth disparity is out of control. Just as union membership has been on the decline, the concentration of wealth has increased in direct proportion. We’re living in a new gilded age of inequality. Fewer and fewer of us are able to provide a decent life for ourselves and our families. Something needs to change. But we have to go further than the traditional blue collar, nationalistic unions. We need to expand our vision to all those who work for a living. Because we are all in this together. We are all simply working to survive and provide. Those in white collar, office jobs whose positions have recently become precarious due to AI. You need a union! To service workers, whose jobs have been automated away at a frantic pace. You need a union! To autoworkers in the US South, in Mexico, Colombia, in Korea and China, you deserve strong, independent unions too! Anywhere people are being exploited is where the labor movement should be found. This is our historical mission.”
Hear Sean Crawford’s full speech on Facebook at https://bit.ly/45RxjdU
UAW member Sean Crawford, from Flint, Michigan, currently works at a Detroit auto plant.
