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shawn fain
UAW President Denounces Trump-GOP Budget Law as 'Total Betrayal' of American Working Class
"This bill isn't governance," said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain. "This is a class war waged from Capitol Hill."
Jul 09, 2025
After Republicans pushed their unpopular reconciliation package through Congress last week, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed the legislation as a step toward "a future where working Americans can feel relief."
But Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), argued in an op-ed Tuesday for The Detroit News that such "hollow promises" are an attempt to obscure "a brutal agenda: stripping working-class people of security, dignity, and power while lining the pockets of billionaires" with trillions of dollars in tax breaks.
"The budget reconciliation bill that the Republicans just passed isn't just bad policy—it's a full-blown attack on America's working class," wrote Fain. "For the UAW and the millions of workers we represent, four core issues define what it means to live and work with dignity: a livable wage, affordable healthcare, retirement security, and time to enjoy life beyond the job. On every one of those fronts, this bill delivers nothing but setbacks."
Fain pointed specifically to the GOP law's more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. Those cuts, combined with Republicans' refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to lapse at the end of the year, are expected to strip health coverage from around 17 million Americans over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The UAW president also points to the Republican law's lesser-known attack on Medicare recipients. The legislation, which President Donald Trump signed into law late last week, would restrict enrollment in Medicare Savings Programs—potentially causing more than a million low-income seniors to lose access—and force more than $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare.
"These aren't numbers on a spreadsheet," Fain wrote. "These are real people losing access to lifesaving care."
"By passing this legislation, the government is telling working-class families they're on their own while billionaires get even more tax breaks."
While the Trump White House and congressional Republicans have tried to cast the budget law's tax provisions as worker-friendly—in some cases by outright lying about what's in the legislation—Fain noted that the law's limited deductions for tips and overtime will only benefit a small sliver of Americans, and only until 2028.
"On the other hand, many of the tax benefits in this bill for the wealthy are indefinite and have no expiration date," Fain wrote. "This is the same bait-and-switch the Trump administration used to sell its 2017 billionaire tax giveaway to the American people: small, temporary tax breaks for working people, with massive, long-term benefits for the wealthy and corporate America."
"This bill isn't governance. This is a class war waged from Capitol Hill," Fain continued. "It shifts the balance of power even further toward the billionaire class and hollows out the rights and dignity of labor. By passing this legislation, the government is telling working-class families they're on their own while billionaires get even more tax breaks."
"It's a total betrayal," he added.
Fain is among many prominent labor leaders who spoke out forcefully against the Republican budget measure and warned about its potentially catastrophic impact on millions of workers.
National Nurses United, the nation's largest nurses union, called the day of the bill's final passage one of "the darkest days in the history of U.S. healthcare."
"People will suffer and die because of the cuts in this legislation to fund tax cuts for billionaires—certainly in the short term and potentially for decades to come if nothing is done," the union said. "Lawmakers have effectively signed the death warrants for millions."
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said that "every member of Congress who voted for this devastating bill picked the pockets of working people to hand billionaires a $5 trillion gift."
"But if the politicians who rammed through this shameful bill think they can sneak away without anyone knowing the damage they've done and the chaos they've created," said Shuler, "they don't know anything about the labor movement."
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UAW President Shawn Fain Throws Weight Behind NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani
The United Auto Workers on Monday released a video highlighting former Democratic New York governor and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo's "failures for working-class New Yorkers."
Jun 03, 2025
With only a few weeks to go until New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, the United Auto Workers released a video on Monday denouncing former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and featuring mayoral candidate and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, whom UAW Region 9a recently announced as their first pick in the race.
The video includes clips of Mamdani, fellow mayoral candidate and city Comptroller Brad Lander, and UAW officials, who highlight episodes from Cuomo's tenure as governor which they indicate make him a unfit to lead New York City as mayor.
Mamdani highlights Cuomo's backing of "Tier 6," an unpopular policy approved in 2012 that cut pension benefits for future public employees and raised the retirement age to 63. Cuomo has said on the campaign trail that he would roll back that policy.
Wence Valentin III, Region 9a Community Action Program director, said in the video that in 2019, when thousands of UAW workers at General Motors were on strike, Cuomo did not sign legislation that would have given striking workers in New York State earlier access to unemployment benefits.
The video concludes with text on screen that says: "UAW says no to Cuomo."
"In the UAW, our endorsements are earned," said UAW International President Shawn Fain in a statement released with the video on Monday. "We support politicians who stand with us, and who have the courage to fight for the working class."
"Zohran Mamdani has stood shoulder to shoulder with us in our fight against some of the toughest bosses in New York City. He's been to countless UAW picket lines. He's fought for better wages, for our livelihoods, and for a livable city for UAW members," added Fain.
Mamdani, who recent polling shows is now solidly in second place behind Cuomo, was endorsed by United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 9a, which includes several union locals based in New York City, back in December alongside two other candidates in the race, Lander and state Senator Jessica Ramos.
New York City uses ranked choice voting for certain elections, including primary and special elections for mayor. The system allows voters to rank multiple candidates on their ballots. Because voters can rank multiple candidates, many entities that offer endorsements have given out endorsements as a slate and given guidance on how to rank the candidates.
On Friday, Region 9a announced that it is recommending voters rank Mamdani first on their ballot. Region 9a is calling on voters to rank Lander second and Ramos third.
Also on Friday, the Working Families Party released the ranking of its endorsements. The political party is urging voters to rank Mamdani first, Lander second, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams third, state Senator Zellnor Myrie fourth, and Ramos fifth.
While the UAW has been critical of Cuomo, other influential unions are supporting him in the race. Two affiliates of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), SEIU 32BJ and 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, have endorsed Cuomo, as has the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council.
The primary is on June 24 and early voting begins on June 14.
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10,000+ Turn Out in Warren, Michigan to 'Fight Oligarchy' With Bernie Sanders
"We will not accept oligarchy, we will not accept authoritarianism, we will not accept kleptocracy," the democratic socialist senator said. "We're gonna fight back, and we're gonna win."
Mar 09, 2025
The Democratic Party may have twice stymied Sen. Bernie Sanders' White House ambitions, but the National Tour to Fight Oligarchylaunched last month by the democratic socialist has been drawing crowds that would be the envy of any presidential campaign.
On Saturday, more than 10,000 people turned out to see Sanders (I-Vt.) speak in Warren, Michigan. Not only did they pack the main event space—the gymnasium at Lincoln High School—literally to the rafters, they filled two overflow rooms, with hundreds turned away outside, according to Michigan Advance.
"We have an administration that is leading us to oligarchy, an administration that is leading us to an authoritarian form of society, an administration that is leading us towards kleptocracy," Sanders said at the beginning of his speech.
Noting that three of the world's richest men—Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—sat in the front row of President Donald Trump's inauguration, Sander said that "instead of a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we have now become a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class."
Sanders also took aim at Trump's false election claims and the wider "post-truth" trend on the right, telling the crowd: "We're up against a phenomenon that we have never seen, and that is the Big Lie. The Big Lie is not just stretching the truth; the Big Lie is not just fibbing. The Big Lie is creating a parallel universe, a set of ideas that have no basis in reality."
The senator also linked past struggles against injustice with the current crisis, arguing that "the change that we have experienced over hundreds of years of our nationhood only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice and fight back."
Sanders was joined on stage by United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who wore a T-shirt reading "Eat the Rich" and told the audience that "billionaires don't have a right to exist."
Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, who ran for Michigan governor in 2018 and is considering a Senate run, pointed to the size of Saturday's crowd in Warren as proof of the enduring power of progressivism.
"They want us to step back, and today, all of you have said that we are not stepping back, we are stepping forward," El-Sayed told Michigan Advance. "We are recognizing that in one another, we have all we need to build that government for the people and by the people."
In a dig at the unofficial motto of some Silicon Valley startups, El-Sayed said that the Trump administration wants "to move fast and break things."
"But what they're breaking is the government that our hard-earned tax dollars have been funding," he said. "And we're here to say that that is our money, that is our government, take your damn billionaire hands off of it."
The Warren rally was the latest on a tour that's seen overflow crowds at almost every stop. Thousands also turned out in Altoona, Wisconsin on Saturday and Kenosha, Wisconsin on Friday to see Sanders speak.
There's more to Sanders' tour than just raging against Trump and the oligarchy. He chose to visit districts where Republicans narrowly won congressional races, hoping to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against proposed cuts to programs upon which working-class people rely, in order to pay for the $4.5 trillion cost of extending Trump's first-term "tax scam" that overwhelmingly benefited the ultra-wealthy and corporations.
"Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power," Sanders said in a statement Friday. "Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for healthcare, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back."
Correction: This article originally said Sanders held a rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The rally was in Altoona, Wisconsin.
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