President Fain's remarks from April 10 Livestream - Our Economy, Our Country, Our Union

UAW Family,

Tonight, I wanted to take some time to talk about what’s going on with our economy, our country, and our union.

There’s a lot to cover, and I know there’s a lot of uncertainty about what this moment holds for the working class.

Big picture, we are in the middle of two massive transformations.

One is in our economic system, where the rules of global trade are being upended, with huge implications for workers everywhere.

The other major transformation is in our political system, where fundamental rights are being eroded, with huge implications for workers everywhere.

Both of these changes are happening at the same time. And I know that can create a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt about the future.

Tonight, I am going to talk about what’s going on. What our union is doing about it. And what it means for the working class.

But first, as always, I want to recognize and honor our members for standing up against corporate America.

Workers at Alamo Drafthouse in New York City have been on strike for more than 50 days. They’re taking on parent company SONY, which fired 70 workers so they could add more to their overflowing coffers. They haven’t backed down.

At Wellesley College, non-tenure track faculty have been on strike for two weeks and are demanding a livable wage.

At Cummins in Oshkosh, WI, UAW members who make components for military and heavy construction equipment are currently on strike. Like so many UAW members, they’re saying HELL NO to tiers. This is a company that made $13.2 billion between 2022 and 2024. They can afford to do better.

At Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Electric Boat, our defense industry members are fighting for a better life and are ready to do what it takes to get it.

These companies are reaping billions in profit and don’t want to give workers their fair share. But the UAW members at these companies are fighting back. They're demanding decent pay, fair treatment, and retirement security.

Nearly a year ago, Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga made history, voting 73% to unionize.

After 8 months of bargaining, they’re fighting for a record contract — but VW is stalling, breaking the law, and refusing industry standards on health care, COLA, and profit sharing.

Last week, VW even blocked workers from bargaining sessions. When they did that, here’s what they showed: they’re scared, and they know it's the workers who have the power – and they’re gonna keep pushing til they win the record contract the company can afford.

All of these workers are also showing that the UAW's mission remains the same as it’s ever been.

Our mission, no matter which industry, which company, which President is in the White House, is to take our power back and raise the standard for the working class.

So I’m going to talk about three things tonight.

First, I am going to discuss where we stand as a union in this political moment.

Next, I’m going to talk about the political attacks happening against the working class.

Lastly, I’m going to discuss what is happening in the auto industry and why our union is hellbent on ending the free trade disaster of the last thirty years.

So let’s get into it.

One of the great divide and conquer tricks the ruling class has played on the working class of this country is to see politics like a spectator sport.

They want everyone who chooses to wear a red hat to hate everyone who votes blue.

If you’re on the blue team, you have to hate everything the red team does.

Both sides talk about bullshit issues to hype up their fan base, while the real issues that impact the working class are never addressed.

In the labor movement, at our best, we have a different way of doing politics.

We don’t make politics about personalities or parties.

We see politics as a negotiation.

We don’t sit down to negotiate with corporate executives because we like them. Or because we trust them.

We focus on what we need as a working class, and what the hell it’s going to take to get it.

And we do that whether we’re sitting across from the friendliest CEO or the meanest Wall Street con artist.

Politics is just like contract negotiations. You win what you have the power to fight for.

That’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in now.

I want to be very clear on this point: we are NOT ALIGNING with the Trump Administration.

We don’t ALIGN with any politician or President.

We ARE NEGOTIATING with the Trump Administration.

Our approach to Trump is no different than our approach was to Biden and is no different than our approach at Stellantis or Columbia University or General Dynamics.

I keep hearing people say “Oh, the UAW loves Trump now.”

Or “the UAW only support Democrats.”

Bullshit.

Our union has a clear north star: the working class.

And the working class’s issues don’t change just because somebody has a D or R next to their name.

For decades, our union has fought to end the free trade disaster. That was true under Republican administration and Democratic administrations.

When we say we will never give up our First Amendment rights to speak out, whether it’s against a genocide or for our union rights, that’s true no matter who is in office. It’s true no matter who agrees or disagrees.

That’s not flip flopping.

That’s integrity.

And one thing we have always fought for, under Democrats and Republicans, is an end to the free trade disaster.

We have seen some reckless and chaotic activity on trade from this administration. There’s a lot of fear of disruption.

But what we have to remember is that disruption is not new to factory workers in this country.

Disruption is what we’ve been living with for thirty years under the free trade disaster.

That doesnt mean we support wreckless, random tariffs. That’s a mistake.

But it’s also a mistake to just defend the status quo, especially when it comes to free trade.

A lot of politicians and pundits are suddenly concerned about our trade agreements.

But where was that concern when we lost 4 million manufacturing jobs in less than a decade in the 2000s?

Where were the pundits when 90,000 plants closed in the wake of NAFTA?

Where was Wall Street when the Big Three closed over 60 facilities in the past 20 years?

See, when working class people suffer, it’s just the cost of doing business.

When it’s Wall Street’s asses on the line, it’s a crisis.

Now I know we all are tied up in the fate of this economy. We cannot afford a recession.

My question to the country is this: Can we afford 90,000 more plants closed?

There are 13 million manufacturing workers left in this country.

Can we afford to let employers threaten 13 million families every day with destroying their jobs if they dare to demand their fair share?

I want to be clear: free trade has been one of the most harmful government policies of our lifetimes.

We have to end this free trade disaster.

We don’t care whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican who ends it.

The question we do care about is: how do we not only bring back and protects our jobs, but also protect our right to organize and our right to collectively bargain?

How do we fight to blow up the billionaire economy while also defending attacks on our right to protest, our right to retire with dignity, our right to healthcare?

It’s not enough for politicians to talk a good game about wanting to bring back jobs. They need to be good, union jobs.

And we have good reason to be suspicious that the Trump Administration is not interested in supporting the right to organize or bargain.

So far, here is what we have seen from the Trump Administration.

We have seen the destruction of bargaining rights for a million federal workers. That is not good for the working class.

We have seen attacks on the National Labor Relations Board, including illegally firing a Board member leading to deadlock on workers cases. That is not good for the working class.

We have seen attacks planned on Social Security, on Medicare, on Medicaid, programs that millions of workers depend on. That is not good for the working class.

We have seen the absolute trampling of Constitutional rights.

We have seen the first amendment go up in smoke at college campuses, with detentions, deportations, expulsions, and firings of people who dared to speak out against and protest against a war.

We have seen the right to due process disappear as working people are deported for no crime and no reason. That is not good for the working class.

Mahmoud Khalil, who has now been detained for over a month for protesting a war, is a former UAW member.

Grant Miner, the UAW President of Local 2710 at Columbia University, was expelled for protesting a war the day before bargaining was going to start.

Rumeysa Ozturk, an SEIU member at Tufts University, has been detained for writing an op-ed.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Sheet Metal apprentice in Maryland, was deported for no reason, no crime, to a prison in El Salvador.

We've seen the arbitrary and unlawful termination of hundreds of our members' visas, which may lead to their unjust deportation.

The list goes on.

And there is a reason we campaigned aggressively against this vision of America in the last election.

We will continue to speak out against it and mobilize against it.

This week, our union participated in mass protests around the country as part of our campaign to Kill the Cuts at the National Institutes of Health, or NIH.

The NIH is a part of the federal government that funds essential scientific research. This is not waste, fraud, or abuse.

We represent 5,000 members who just won their first union contract at the National Institutes of Health.

We also represent tens of thousands of members whose jobs rely on the funding provided by the NIH at universities across the country.

When we cure cancer. When we save lives with new medications. It is because of these workers. Who bust their ass on high level research that changes the world.

Our government should expand funding for lifesaving research and allow researchers in the U.S. to be the first to find cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Cutting research funding kills union jobs, and even worse, it kills the hope of working people who rely on this research to see new treatments to save their loved ones’ lives.

It kills the hope of the millions of Americans who are caring for family members with Alzheimer’s to see advances in prevention & treatment.

It kills the hope of the parent of a child with a rare disease, whose only shot at survival is a clinical trial.

One of the first things the Trump Administration did was go after was NIH funding.

Why did they do it?

For the same reason they have done so much of their agenda.

To steal money from the public to pay for billionaires’ tax cuts.

It’s that simple. And it’s that short-sighted.

And it’s the same reason they’re going after higher education workers and institutions. Because they want to use political leverage to claw back funds to pay out to the billionaires.

Last week, we joined a lawsuit to Kill the Cuts to NIH funding across the country.

This week, we hit the streets, and rallied in DC, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, LA, the Bay Area, and many more cities to save thousands of jobs and life-saving research.

And we are beginning to see results.

On Friday, a judge ruled against the Trump administration’s first round of cuts at the NIH.

And we are already seeing more NIH funds being released despite the Trump Administration’s efforts to loot our scientific research for billionaires’ gain.

But the fight is far from over.

When we speak out against these actions, we get called liberals by the right-wingers.

When we speak out in support of tariffs, we get called right-wingers by the liberals.

People say we flip-flop, or do a 180.

The truth is, what we are doing is acting with integrity.

If you want to destroy our unions and our government, and attack our members, we will oppose you every step of the way.

If you want to undo our broken, unfair trade system and raise the standards for factory workers, we will go to the mat to support that.

Because we aren’t Democrats or Republicans. We are trade unionists.

Now I want to take some real time to dig into what’s going on with trade, and these tariffs.I know there’s a lot of confusion. A lot of hype. A lot of chaos.And if we were running the show, it would look a lot different.But there are a few things we should all understand about our trade rules, and about these tariffs.Because they affect your life. Your future. Your family.Big picture, we need to acknowledge something.

Free trade has been a disaster for the working class.Here's how the free trade scam works.The government gives a green light to companies to build their product wherever they can find the most exploited workers. Countries where desperate people will work for $3 an hour, where there are no labor laws, and where there are no environmental regulations.

Then the companies kill jobs in the US and run a race to the bottom across the globe. They force workers across borders to compete with one another.

And the companies ship product back in at massive profit, which they pocket for the executives, the shareholders, and pay off the politicians for good measure.

Meanwhile we get Flint. We get Lordstown. We get Belvidere.

We get communities that look like a bomb got dropped.

We get divorce.

We get drug addictions.

We get suicide.

We get deaths of despair.

I don’t need to tell you. So many of us in the UAW have lived it.

And what do consumers get?

They get price gouged.

What does Wall Street get?

Massive profits.

What do politicians get?

Huge campaign contributions from companies and billionaires that are flush with cash.

And what do voters get?

They get politicians bought off by corporate America who continue to pass laws that harm the working class.

And what do foreign workers get?

In Mexico, they’ve seen their real wages cut in half since NAFTA passed.

Let me repeat that.

Taking inflation into account, the average real wages of Mexican autoworkers was about $6 an hour in 1993.

Today, the average hourly wage of an auto worker in Mexico is $3 an hour.

NAFTA has been devastating for auto workers in the United States AND Mexico.

Who benefits from the free trade status quo?

Wall Street and billionaires who get fat payouts while we all get screwed.

So when we say the free trade disaster has to come to an end, that’s what we mean.

Where do tariffs come into play?

In our view, tariffs are a first step.

They are a tool in the toolbox.

They have to be well-designed. They need to be paired up with other policies and changes. But they are a start to stop the bleeding.

So let’s dig into the details about where our union stands on tariffs and trade.

Here is our position as a union on tariffs and free trade.

Number one. Free trade has been a disaster for the working class. We have to end these broken, anti-worker policies.

Number two. We can and should reshore tens of thousands of jobs in very short order, which would raise the standard for all workers. Strategic tariffs can play a role in that.

Number three. The automakers, the auto market, and corporate America can afford it.

So let’s get into the details on these tariffs.

Right now, there are three main kinds of tariffs on the table.

Some of these tariffs target entire countries, some of these target specific industries.

Big picture, we support SOME use of tariffs on auto manufacturing and other similar industries.

We do NOT support the use of tariffs for political games about immigration or fentanyl.

We do NOT support reckless, chaotic tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.

We absolutely support – and have always supported – tariffs on the auto industry, on heavy truck, on agricultural implements.

The difference is, the auto tariffs are designed for a specific purpose.

They raise the cost on companies that have killed good jobs in a race to the bottom for cheap labor elsewhere while Wall Street makes a killing.

Specifically, we have industries where right now, there are active plants operating under capacity in the US while workers outside the US are exploited for $3 an hour.

We have excess auto production capacity in the US.

We could bring back tens of thousands of jobs in a matter of months.

That’s before we even talk about building new plants.

We are talking about adding shifts. Adding lines. Adding jobs. Making products that we know are profitable.

This is not pie in the sky.

Companies could do this IMMEDIATELY and bring back tens of thousands of jobs.

Let me give you an example.

Six months ago, over a thousand workers were laid off at Stellantis’s Warren Truck plant.

For 80 years, that plant has operated and built profitable vehicles.

Recently, the company decided to move production of the RAM truck to a plant in Mexico where workers make $3 an hour.

That is a race to the bottom.

Instead of paying workers $37 an hour, they’re paying workers $3.

The price of the truck doesn’t go down and the wages in Mexico don’t go up.

Instead, company executives and shareholders pocket the difference while a thousand workers lives are upended here in Michigan.

And there are tons of plants just like that.

We took a look at just a handful of Big Three plants. We wanted to look just at the recent past.

We asked ourselves: How many more vehicles could we produce if we went back to the levels that those plants operated at just 10 years ago?

The answer is staggering.

Ten years ago, 12 Big Three plants that are still in operation RIGHT NOW were producing over 2 MILLION more vehicles every year.

These plants still have that capacity right now. That’s tens of thousands of jobs that we could bring back right now.

Our research tells us that if the Big Three alone just got their currently active plants up to 100 percent capacity, they could add 50,000 jobs.

Let me say that again.

If they just used the plants that are already running, and hired up to full capacity, we could add 50,000 jobs at the Big Three.

That’s not including closed plants like GM Lordstown, which could bring thousands of more jobs back to Ohio if we reopened it.

That’s not including building new plants.

And don’t forget, for every 100 auto assembly jobs that are created in the United States, there are another 700 jobs created in the supply chain.

50,000 more jobs at the Big Three means hundreds-of-thousands more jobs at part suppliers.

That’s not even including non-union automakers.

That’s if we just stop letting the automakers get away with murder by running a race to the bottom under our broken trade deals.

The other thing we hear is that these auto tariffs will be too expensive for working people. The automakers can’t afford it, so they’ll pass the cost onto the consumer.

That is B. S.

It is exactly what we heard in our Stand Up Strike. It’s what the bosses say whenever workers have the courage to demand more of their fair share.

Back in 2023, we said record profits mean record contracts.

Company executives said our demands to raise wages and end tiers would force them to raise prices. They said the industry would never survive.

Turns out, the companies lied. They could afford to do the right thing then and they can afford to do the right thing now.

Here’s a chart that shows the price of a new car next to the automakers price gouging.

See how the profit goes up right alongside the price? That’s because they’re price gouging. They’ve been price gouging for years.

That tells us that we shouldn’t trust the companies when they say they can’t afford it.

It also means there is flexibility in the price. They don’t need to pass on the costs of auto tariffs because they’re already making plenty of money.

And where do those profits go?

Wall Street. Plain and simple.

The profits don’t get reinvested in new plants.

They don’t go to the workers.

They don’t go to the federal government to fund Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid.

In the past 15 years, the top 10 automakers have made $1.6 TRILLION in profits.

They have funneled $367 billion into stock buybacks schemes that artificially inflate the value of company shares and further enrich company executives and the 1%.

They could’ve built dozens of plants here.

They chose not to.

They chose to loot the rust belt to pay off Wall Street.

We MUST end this cycle.

The auto tariffs are a first step in ending the free trade disaster.

We don’t need to trust Donald Trump or any politician to fix it for us.

We need to put out our vision for an auto industry that doesn’t leave the working class behind.

And then we need to fight like hell for it. In 2026, the United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement, the USMCA, is up for review.

And in the last presidential election, the candidates from both the Democrat and Republican parties agreed we needed to rewrite the deal.

The fact is, under the USMCA, autoworkers are still living under the race to the bottom.

Mexican autoworkers are still having their union rights trampled on.

American autoworkers are still under constant threat of plant closures.

We want to sit down at the bargaining table and renegotiate the USMCA trade deal TODAY.

A new trade deal for North America should have a manufacturing minimum wage.

Workers on two sides of a border should not be competing with one another in a race to the bottom.

A new trade deal for North America should make it so if you want to sell product in a country, you have to make product in a country.

That would be good for Canada, for the US, and for Mexico.

A new trade deal should fix the race to the bottom in the supply chain, too. We don’t want our IPS members, who are just as essential to this industry, to be left behind.

We need enforcement mechanisms to make sure that trade is tied to how these companies treat their workers.

And we need a trade agreement that guarantees that labor rights are protected in Canada, the US, and Mexico.

So that’s what we’re fighting for. And already, dozens of members of Congress have called for renegotiating the USMCA.

That’s the first step.

But we also know that new trade policy won’t fix it all.

We also need a plan to rebuild the auto industry beyond just fair trade rules. We need to invest in America.

Under the Biden administration, we started to see some serious investment.

We need there to be rules in place to make sure that investment isn’t abused by corporate America to undermine workers or the auto industry standards we’ve won.

As we mentioned, right now we have capacity ready to be used in auto, but also in heavy truck, in agricultural implements, in aerospace.

We are ready to work and rebuild the rust belt. But we need investment.

We also need new labor policy.

We have talked for years about the broken labor laws in this country that make it nearly impossible for millions of workers who’d like to join a union to actually do so.

It wasn’t corporate America that built the American dream, it was the labor movement.

And it’s the labor movement that will save the American dream. But our laws have to change.

And finally we need to seriously take on Wall Street.

There was a time in this country when it was illegal to do stock buybacks to pump up your share price.

When you couldn’t just strip companies for parts and sell them off to make a buck for shareholders.

When corporate executives had reasonable limits on compensation.

When there was a corporate tax rate that pushed companies to reinvest in their companies instead of looting them.

Right now, trade is on the table.

Think about it as collectively negotiating job security with the federal government.

But we’re not stopping at trade.

Our message is simple: we're coming for our fair share, across the board.

And we have been very clear about what that fair share looks like.

It goes back to our four core issues.

Number one. A living wage for all. Not a minimum wage. A living wage. A family wage.

Number two. Healthcare for all. We cannot keep living like this, where people can’t afford to go to the doctor or risk bankruptcy.

Number three. A dignified retirement.

The majority of working class Americans have no retirement savings.

We need to expand social security and Medicare so people can actually have a life after they give decades to these companies.

And we’re going to the mat in May 2028 to win that at the Big Three, after years of being left behind.

And number four is a life off the job. Nobody should have to work two or three jobs, or spend 80 hours a week in a factory to have a decent life.

We disagree with 99% of what the Trump administration is doing.

We are supporting national mobilizations against the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers and immigrants.

We have joined lawsuits against the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education institutions.

And I cannot stress enough how strongly we oppose this administration’s attacks on our freedom of speech and basic civil liberties.

We also oppose the free trade disaster.

We opposed these policies under Republicans and Democrats. And we will support their reversal under Democrats and Republicans.

We aren’t going to change our position on ending free trade just because Trump is president.

But no matter what party you voted for, understand this.

There is a direct line between the free trade disaster and the political chaos in this country.

Plant closures and mass layoffs resulted in intense pain and suffering and anger for hundreds of thousands of working families in our country.

And all that pain and anger had to go somewhere.

A lot of it went to Trump.

And now it’s being directed at immigrants. At transgender people. At higher education.

That is the wrong target.

The right target is corporate America.

And the sooner both parties understand this, the sooner our country will begin to deal with our real issues.

We need to build a political movement that can put the working class first.

And to do that, we're going to need working-class people to step up, speak up, and take on corporate America, from the bargaining table to the ballot box.

No matter who’s on the other side of that table, or in that office, we’re going to have to stand up and stand strong, with integrity, on our issues.