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By: Eric L
BOSTON, MA – On May 21, 2025, Working Mass and Boston DSA hosted a forum to discuss the attempted dissolution of Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a rank-and-file caucus within United Auto Workers (UAW), and the political struggles that preceded that moment. The forum was hosted to open up discussion on an important rank-and-file debate in a context of few open spaces for discussion about the UAWD’s dissolution vote within the labor movement itself. In attendance were members of both DSA and UAW from across the country. These included long-time UAW retirees, plant autoworkers, and members of the Steering Committee who disagreed with the majority move.
UAWD was formed as a vehicle for a vision of a more independent, militant UAW in 2019, following several other rank-and-file rebellions within the UAW, such as the 1968 Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, and played a major role in establishing direct election of UAW leadership in 2021 and narrowly electing Shawn Fain in 2023 as the union’s president. However, since this election, tensions had risen between two wings: the majority of the Steering Committee that subsequently became UAW Member Action, supporting dissolution, and the minority “Class Struggle” wing in opposition.
Numerous DSA members were involved with both factions.
The forum was conceived as an opportunity to hear from both the pro- and anti- dissolution figures within the caucus. However, while numerous workers volunteered to speak about their opposition to the dissolution, no pro-dissolution speakers agreed to participate. A Working Mass moderator argued the pro-dissolution talking points, based on public statements released by that faction, as well as public analysis from prominent labor organizers presenting the arguments of Member Action. Nonetheless, there was palpable disappointment that no one from the pro-dissolution side was there to argue that position.
Procedural Controversies Over Dissolution
Much of the discourse in the wake of the attempted dissolution has concerned the procedure followed and the result itself. Based on a narrow vote in favor of dissolution among those in the general body meeting which debated the topic, Member Action has alleged that the caucus was dissolved by its membership. Meanwhile, the Class Struggle wing has argued that dissolution did not take place due to significant procedural discrepancies that undermined internal democracy, including circumventing a ⅔ clause in favor of a simple majority to dissolve the caucus that many organizers poured blood, sweat, and tears into on both sides.
Other alleged controversies included blocking new members from joining leading up to the vote, disregarding Robert’s Rules of Order by ignoring motions during the meeting, and arbitrarily removing certain members from the meeting.
The Strategy of Dissolution
The legality of the attempted dissolution was also discussed; however, the emphasis was not on whether or not the dissolution had succeeded, but on the political and tactical differences between the two factions that led to the attempt to dissolve the caucus. These differences concerned the approach to the Fain administration, emphasis on political rather than economic issues (and in particular the genocide in Gaza), and the professional makeup of the caucus itself.
After the UAWD won the 2023 internal election to elect Fain and other reformers, followed by striking the Big Three and setting a north star for a 2028 General Strike, members split over whether the caucus should align closely with Fain or maintain a more independent apparatus that could exert pressure on the Fain administration of the union. This strategic question seems to have resonated more with a slim minority of the UAWD, while the majority continued to focus primarily on building up workplace militancy through rank-and-file training. Before the nuclear move by the majority, disagreement between factions sharpened strongly in response to Fain’s endorsement of the Democratic Party ticket in 2024, Fain’s support for many of Donald Trump’s tariffs, and, of course, the union’s contracts themselves.
One union member critically described the caucus’s relationship with Fain during the forum:
[The majority] thought the answer was to “gold star” everything the Fain Administration does because we endorsed him. That’s when independence came into question, and I think a group of people do not want to be independent of Shawn Fain and the people that were endorsed by the UAWD during the IEB elections. A group of us thought it was important that we maintained our independence and that the caucus was bigger than individuals.
Another, calling in from a Detroit shop floor, criticized the training orientation of Member Action as insufficient. To them, the centrality of the reform movement is not only in building workplace militancy through rank-and-file trainings, but also in creating a political space for workers to become political protagonists:
(The) Steering Committee majority wanted to become a training center where they are able to have top down control rather than a vibrant democratic or member-led organization that gets to set up political priorities and creates a space for workers to debate these important political questions, like what we’re going to do about the EV transition or tariffs or Palestine.
Palestine – A Central Debate in the UAWD
Palestinian liberation, as is so often the case, became a defining issue for the caucus’s political split. Majorities of both factions have released statements in favor of Palestine, though there was a visible pro-Israel presence within the majority faction. Nonetheless, emphasizing Palestine programmatically became a major source of contention. At the meeting where the dissolution was voted on, speakers in favor of dissolution spoke against “ultra-left” emphasis on political issues- something that was largely seen as a reference to Palestine.
A UAW retired auto worker argued at the forum:
The Steering Committee majority—the pro-dissolution group—was not for giving anything beyond very cursory mention to solidarity with Palestine… The chair of the Steering Committee said that ‘if members are working on Palestine solidarity, they’re not reforming the UAW.’ My counter-argument is that the UAW cannot call itself reformed if it’s not able to take a strong stand in solidarity against this horrific genocide that is still going on.
Member Action did not, of course, oppose the emphasis on Palestine because they were militant Zionists; rather, they saw the emphasis on such “political” issues as outside the core union work. Indeed, in the dissolution proposal, the majority stated, “We believe in the need for a reform caucus, but not in one that is constantly engaged in insular debate that distracts from the work of building the union.” They did not believe that their position was less militant, but rather, that the caucus’s energy was misplaced on issues on which it could not directly engage.
In this argument, Member Action shows a clear political foundation. In 1970, decades before Kim Moody penned the 2000 pamphlet outlining the Rank-and-File Strategy, the socialist leader Hal Draper spoke on the topic of trade unions to the New Left: “Marx, Marxism, and Trade Unions.” To their immense credit, while many New Left radicals took increasingly esoteric or sectarian avenues out of the Sixties, Draper’s tendency embedded themselves in the labor movement in what essentially became many lifetimes spent across thousands of activists to bring socialism closer to the rank-and-file movement. Emphasizing the idea of bringing the working class “into motion,” that the motion of the class itself is what shakes the foundations of society, Draper critiqued “class struggle” socialist orientations in labor unions:.
The class struggle begins on a much lower level than the Marxist program itself, but the Marxist program says that this struggle is revolutionary from the beginning. The basic goal – the primary aim – is to get the class as a whole moving…. the distinguishing feature of [class struggle orientations] is that the split is based on some sort of ideological notion of what trade unions ought to be. They are not the result of movement from below.
To Draper, “leftist unionism” centered line struggle over actual militant action from below – a paraphrase of the same argument used by UAW Member Action.
UAW Member Action and their supporters pointed to lengthy membership meetings, which they alleged were dominated by workers in the education and legal sectors rather than auto workers, bogged down in concerns about political issues on which the union could do little more than take a symbolic position. Supporters of dissolution, including DSA members, complained at the meeting of a cadre of activists, not a part of UAW’s blue-collar base, who dominated proceedings and insisted on debating and voting on numerous topics not pertinent to shop-floor work.
To the Steering Committee minority and their allies, this framing revealed both a myopic vision of who constituted the working class and a disregard for member democracy. Another retired UAW member and opponent of dissolution disputed the insistence that such issues were alienating to workers, firing off: “The majority says, ‘we had to split off because the workers in the plants will run away if you bring up Palestine.’ Well, I’m sorry, it actually hasn’t been brought up in most of the plants. Second off, I’m 78 and I’ve been in the UAW for over forty years. I have brought up everything from Palestine to Libya to Iraq, Iran, et cetera. I was still elected numerous times to the Executive Board.”
Other supporters of the Steering Committee minority took issue with the premise that workers in the education or legal sector taking vocal roles in meetings was inappropriate, arguing such framing was divisive and fed into dated or reactionary perceptions as to the composition of the working class.
A Split Produces Two Directions
UAW Member Action calls itself “a new, union-wide network of members supporting each other to stand up to employers, grow as activists and organizers, and carry on the transformation of our union at every level.” The governing structures of this new group are unclear. To its promoters, the caucus is now free of dysfunctional conflict and can pursue a reform from below vision that reaffirms the need for workplace organizing across the union at every shop. To critics, the new formation is positioning itself as a traditional union administrative caucus uncommitted to political struggles, without internal democracy, and without a commitment to class struggle or internationalism at a time of genocide.
The Class Struggle orientation, meanwhile, continues to function under the UAWD name. They continue to meet to further their work without access to several crucial UAWD resources, such as the website, which redirects members to UAW Member Action without mention of the ongoing activities of the original organization. This doubtless much smaller UAWD will remain, to its critics, unacceptably occupied with political goals and with what they view as insular left-wing priorities which are not reflective of autoworkers as a whole.
It’s unclear how these two directions will impact the Fain administration.
These competing visions of labor, of class struggle, and of unions’ role in the political arena are far from confined to the struggle over UAWD. They are visible in countless unions, workers’ advocacy organizations, and in socialist organizations, including DSA. UAWD’s successes, failures, and fractures will continue to cast a long shadow over these struggles.
The quotes included in this article have been lightly stylistically edited for clarity. You can view the forum in its entirety at bdsa.us/UAWD.
Eric L is a member of Boston DSA, UAW Local 2320, and Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD).
The post UAWD Dissolved?: A Report on the Working Mass Forum appeared first on Working Mass.
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