Shawn Fain on How the UAW Whipped the Big Three

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In late October, after a six-week strike, the United Auto Workers reached a historic contract deal with the big three Detroit automakers. This week, as membership votes to approve the contract are underway, President Joe Biden rallied with the UAW president in Illinois to celebrate the tentative agreement between the union and the automakers. This week on Deconstructed, UAW President Shawn Fain joins Ryan Grim to discuss the victory. Fain was elected president of the union earlier this year by the union membership, in the first UAW election in which members could directly vote for the union president. Fain discusses the recent win, the union election that led to his victory, corruption inside union ranks, and the broader labor reform movement for direct democracy within unions.

If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Imagine you in a nice comfy seat with your hands behind your head taking in the views instead of taking on the road maybe even taking a nap. That's the bliss of getting where you need to go
0:16.1	without worrying about driving. Book your train journey via avantiawestcoast.co. Ovanti West Coast.
0:25.0	Feel good travel. I'm Ryan Grim. Welcome to Deconstructed. My guest on today's show is the
0:40.0	President of the United Auto Workers Sean Fain. He joined us just ahead of his
0:44.3	rally with President Biden Thursday and he was having some technical
0:47.3	difficulties. So the audio of our conversation isn't as pristine as you've come to
0:51.4	expect from this August podcast, but I think it was a
0:54.3	fascinating conversation nonetheless. Here it is. I'm Ryan Grimm. Welcome to
0:59.3	deconstructed. My guest today is the president of the United
1:02.4	Auto Workers, Sean Fain.
1:04.0	Sean, thank you so much for joining me.
1:06.0	Oh, thank you. It's great to be here.
1:08.0	So you're on your way later today to an event with President Biden in Illinois to celebrate the contracts.
1:13.4	Your wins against the big three.
1:15.4	And I'm curious, back in September,
1:17.3	when he joined the picket line, the first president
1:19.6	to do so in American history,
1:22.0	did that have any effect on the talks at the bargaining table?
1:25.3	Like what was it like the next time that you walked into that room?
1:28.8	You know, I think the bargaining table, the main point of control was the membership. mean the striking workers I mean but it definitely
1:36.2	Obviously when the president of the United States visits a picket line for the first time in history it's a big deal
1:40.5	And you know obviously it I believe it did send a message that you know
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Intercept, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Intercept and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.