Since the UAW’s founding in the Depression, when autoworkers flooded into the union to win a better life, it has been a force for economic and social justice. UAW members marched arm in arm with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement and the UAW fought the “free-trade” policies that devastated so many of our hometowns in the 1990s. Starting in the 2010s, 17 UAW leaders betrayed that legacy, were exposed for their crimes and pleaded guilty. In response, UAW members passed a referendum to ensure the union is truly democratic. They voted to give every member the right to directly elect the union’s top officers. In 2023, reformer Shawn Fain was elected president and under his leadership UAW autoworkers just won their strongest contracts in decades.