Election Results & Next Steps for Building Worker Power
While many of yesterday’s election results are still being finalized, the re-election of Donald Trump marks a serious setback for workers, migrants, the climate, women, and transgender people—everyone but the billionaires.
Working people have been here before. As UAW members, we know that it is not only possible to push back against the regressive policies we know are coming, we can even drive our own agenda forward. During Trump’s first term, we came together many times to organize and build mass collective action to defend our rights. Despite the real setbacks posed by his administration, we took on – and won – fights against regressive policies on labor, immigration, reproductive justice, and more. We played a critical role in defeating Trump’s Muslim travel bans. We also played a major role in preventing the reversal of the Columbia decision, maintaining the rights of grad workers at private universities to unionize. That win laid the groundwork for 12,000 academic workers in private universities on the East Coast to win their unions, launching the race to the top we continue driving up today. We never stopped organizing new workers – 1000 Postdocs at UW and 5000 Academic Researchers at UC – that propelled the wave of organizing in Region 6 that thousands more workers build upon now in multiple sectors.
Like everything we’ve won as a union, each of these wins took a real fight – workers coming together, organizing mass collective action, and working strategically. And through those fights, members won major change under difficult circumstances. We built the power to win then – and we’re far more organized and powerful now.
Today, one illustration of our increased power is in the unprecedented scale of our collective political program this fall, with hundreds of members making more than one million contacts with voters. While it’s clear those efforts were not enough, they are paying off in a number of critical races at the local and state levels – for instance winning a historic tenants rights measure in Berkeley, winning abortion access in Arizona and Nevada, electing at least three members and former members to office, and much more. We also helped elect numerous candidates whose positions will directly increase power to win collective bargaining legislation in support of ongoing campaigns in Nevada, Washington, and Arizona.
There is much to be done to learn from our experiences this fall and build real political power to win a world that really works for working people – including a real say at work, justice for Palestine, climate justice, immigrant justice, and more. It will take every member coming together, taking action, and building solidarity and community together.
Please join an election debrief and to discuss next steps at the next Region 6 CAP/PAC meeting (the political action committee for the Region), on Saturday, November 16 at 10am via Zoom.
In Solidarity,
Rafael Jaime, Local 4811
Levin Kim, Local 4121
Gene Hurd, Local 509
Lark Winner, Local 4123
KJ Janeschek, Local 1907
Justin Jarvis, Local 492
Kanie Kastroll, Local 3555
Joel Benefield, Local 230
Larry Wilson, Local 2162
Frances Maldonado, Local 179
Mike Miller, Region 6 Director