We are now retired but served in elected positions in a number of unions, including since 1978 some offices in the UAW. We have participated in union reform movements for decades.
Today, workers need to combine union reform with a new CIO and new Civil Rights Movement. The potential is there in movements ranging from new union organizing, to Black Lives Matter, to the movement for immigrant rights, to the movement for women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and to the movement against Trump.
The various UAW reform efforts, from local to national, should aim for a common “united front” policy. We should unite when, where, and how we can. We should unite to replace conservative union leaderships that do little, and that fail to stand against concessions and for unions’ independence from the Democrats and Republicans.
What further motivates us is the goal of a socialist society in which workers run a government that plans an economy producing for human needs, not profit, and unites with other working class socialists around the world.
Right now, we stress the need for a Labor (workers) Party to break the monopoly of the Republican and Democratic parties. Several US unions united to found a short-lived Labor Party in the 1990s. But the United States remains the only major capitalist power without a major labor or socialist party providing workers with some mass working-class culture and organizing framework. For example, the absence of such a party shows in the lack of a national public health care system and in anti-labor laws such as the Taft Hartley Act.
What this website is
On this site, we present links to socialist readings. These range from the need for leadership by people of color to new economic developments such as AI. We will include articles from socialist movements and parties internationally. We recommend these articles to our fellow Local 600 members.
Judy Wraight, former Dearborn Assembly Plant and Tool & Die Unit Executive Boards;
Ron Lare, former Local 600-wide Guide and General Council Delegate
RonLare@gmail.com