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I'm a Veteran of Organized Auto Boycotts. My Advice to Tesla? Dump Musk
During the Great Recession, I organized a Toyota boycott that accidentally paved the way for Musk’s rise. Musk probably won’t tell that story, so I will.
Jul 03, 2025
Elon Musk's alliance with Donald Trump may be over for now, but the Tesla brand has yet to recover from Musk's high profile foray into far-right politics.
Tesla stock has plummeted precipitously ever since Musk’s embrace of Donald Trump last year. It’s been enough to alarm board members, who are now considering replacing Musk as CEO as public “Tesla Takedown” protests have spread across the country.
Ironically, Musk himself was the beneficiary of a similar boycott years ago — a boycott I ran. And since Musk himself is unlikely to relay the story, I will.
In the aftermath of the 2008 market collapse, Toyota announced plans to shutter its Fremont, California factory and move production to Japan, Canada, Mexico, and Mississippi. Not surprisingly, outrage ensued. Soon after, I received a call from the incoming United Auto Workers president Bob King, who asked me to devise a campaign to challenge the Toyota closing.
For Toyota, it was about abandoning California. For Musk, it’s been about dismantling our government and attacking union rights, among other misdeeds.
The strategy we landed on was to reframe this struggle from one borne by workers alone to one that emphasized the broader damage to California’s economy that the closure would cause.
Back then in California, one of every four vehicles sold was a Toyota. As the New York Times’ Bob Herbert wrote in 2010, the U.S. was “the largest market for Toyota vehicles in the world, larger even than Japan.” And the Corolla, built at the Fremont facility, was “the best-selling car of all time.”
But it was that very success that made them vulnerable.
We knew Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays were the prime sales days for most car dealerships. We dispatched our ground troops to cover those three days of the week, in shifts of 8 to 10 people, to 50 dealerships in California and 50 more throughout the United states, holding banners proclaiming, “Toyota Kills California Jobs.”
The company’s sales managers panicked, with several complaining to me personally that their sales were hurting. On April 1, 2010, Toyota shuttered the Fremont factory as they had previously announced, but our boycott continued.
Two weeks later, faced with our ongoing boycott, Toyota president Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, called Elon Musk, flew to Los Angeles to meet Musk for dinner, and offered a $50 million cash infusion if Musk would take over the old Fremont plant and hire from the laid off workforce.
Musk had been on the brink of signing a deal to open a Tesla plant in Southern California, but this offer — and the boycott that prompted it — abruptly changed his plans.
Not long after, those Fremont workers were making Teslas instead of Toyotas — and employment at the plant has skyrocketed from 4,700 then to over 20,000 today. Musk went on to become the world’s wealthiest man.
Now, Toyota president Akio Toyoda wasn’t exactly like today’s Musk when it comes to public notoriety. But there are some striking similarities between the two cases.
Both car companies claim to be leaders of environmentally sustainable transportation. Like the Prius before it, a drive through any upscale retail parking lot from Los Angeles to New York City today will similarly show a high proportion of Tesla sedans, bought during less fraught times by environmentally conscious consumers.
And both companies have suffered from a strong sense of betrayal among their most loyal customer base. For Toyota, it was about abandoning California. For Musk, it’s been about dismantling our government and attacking union rights, among other misdeeds.
Today, the cratering of Tesla’s stock value, coinciding with nationwide anti-Musk protests at Tesla dealerships, reinforces two important truisms fundamental to a free market: public opinion of brands still affects stock value, and a CEO's behavior can trigger lasting backlash against their brand.
So as the organizer of the boycott that accidentally helped along Musk’s rise to prominence, what’s my advice for the Tesla board today? Make Musk divest his shares and move on.
It’s likely that nothing else will quell these protests.
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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 Wins Against Inequality to Celebrate in 2024
Champions in the fight against inequality face formidable challenges in 2025. But by working together at all levels—from the shop floor to state houses to the halls of Congress—we can still find ways to build power.
Dec 31, 2024
In dark times like these, shining a light on successful efforts to reverse our country’s extreme inequality is more important than ever. As we looked back on 2024, we actually found plenty to celebrate. Here are 10 inspiring wins that deserve more attention.
1. Labor Breakthrough in the South
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly in April to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), a landmark win for labor organizing in the South. The region has suffered deeply because of its low-road, anti-union economic model. Seven out of ten states with the highest levels of poverty are in the South, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Whatever happens on the national political stage over the next four years, local communities can still win important fights for a more just society.
Another UAW election, at a Mercedes-Benz facility in Vance, Alabama, where management was more aggressively anti-union, went the other way in May. But the union has vowed to continue organizing in the region. “This is a David and Goliath fight,” UAW President Shawn Fain said after the Mercedes loss. “Sometimes Goliath wins a battle. But David wins the war.”
2. Union Momentum at Amazon
Organizing workers at Amazon—now the nation’s second largest private employer—has been a white whale of the labor movement for years. Aside from a breakthrough union election win in Staten Island, puncturing the e-commerce giant’s anti-labor strategy has been challenging. That is, until this year, when the Teamsters made sizable gains.
The National Labor Relations Board ruled this summer that Amazon should be considered a joint employer of the delivery drivers it subcontracts, opening up that class of workers to organize. And organize they did—according to the Teamsters, over 5,000 drivers have joined the union at nine Amazon locations. Warehouse workers have made advances as well. In California, Amazon employees in San Francisco and at the company’s air hub in San Bernardino are now demanding union recognition.
3. Grocery Mega-Merger Blocked
For the past two years, the United Food and Commercial Workers union has led a coalition of more than 100 organizations against the proposed merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons. The union predicted the mega-merger would result in “lost jobs, closed stores, food deserts, and higher prices.”
By contrast, corporate executives stood to make a killing. At Albertsons alone, the proposed merger agreement would’ve delivered as much as $146 million to the firm’s top 10 officials.
On December 10, one federal court judge and another in Washington state sided with the Federal Trade Commission and issued temporary injunctions against the deal. The following day, Albertsons threw in the towel on what would’ve been the biggest grocery store merger in U.S. history. “This is the first time the FTC has ever sought to block a merger not just because it’s gonna be bad for consumers, but also for workers,” FTC chair Lina Khan said shortly after the decision.
4. Ballot Wins on Taxes, Wages, Paid Leave
Despite the red wave on November 5, voters in several states passed ballot initiatives to adopt inequality-fighting policies that most Republican politicians oppose.
In the red states of Nebraska, Missouri, and Alaska, voters approved guaranteed paid leave, while Missouri and Alaska also passed state minimum wage hikes.
Washington state voters rejected a hedge fund-financed ballot proposal to repeal the state’s path-breaking capital gains tax on the rich. They also beat back an effort to gut a state-operated long-term care insurance program. In Illinois, voters adopted a nonbinding measure expressing support for an extra 3% tax on income of over $1 million.
5. TurboTax Got Turbo-Trounced
In 2024, for the first time ever, over 100,000 Americans filed their tax returns digitally directly to the IRS. The agency’s Direct File system went live in 12 pilot states, breaking the dominance that for-profit tax preparation companies have enjoyed for years.
“This is an important fight to ensure greedy tax prep companies don’t continue to rake in money from filers who are simply doing their civic duty,” wrote Public Citizen’s Susan Harley for Inequality.org.
Direct file also advances racial justice. Color of Change and the Groundwork Collaborative exposed how Intuit’s TurboTax and H&R Block target Black and low-income communities for costly and unnecessary services.
Unfortunately, this fight is not over. House Republicans are urging President-elect Donald Trump to kill the IRS’s free direct file service on day one of his second administration.
6. Biden’s Worker Protection Spree
President Joe Biden adopted a range of pathbreaking executive actions to protect U.S. workers—including safeguards against toiling in extreme heat, broader overtime pay coverage, and new measures protecting organizing rights. He also authorized rules to crack down on bosses who misclassify employees as independent contractors or force them to sign noncompete agreements.
The beauty of executive actions: no need for Congressional approval. The downside: The next president has the power to roll them back.
Will that happen under Trump, a self-declared but dubious champion of the working class? We shall see. In the meantime, the National Employment Law Project and several other organizations have put together a guide on how state policymakers could enact similar standards at the subfederal level.
7. Grounding Private Jets
Did you know that private jets pollute 10 to 20 times more per passenger than commercial airplanes? And the typical private jet owner, with a net worth of nearly $200 million, actually pays a far smaller share of air safety fees than commercial coach passengers, according to Institute for Policy Studies research.
In 2024, Stop Private Jet Expansion, a 100-organization coalition, won two major victories in their campaign to block the expansion of New England’s largest private jet airport, Hanscom Field outside Boston. Massachusetts state rejected the developer’s environmental impact submission, demanding supplemental information. As part of a comprehensive climate bill, the state legislature also updated the charter of Massport, the agency that will decide the future of the airport, to require them to consider carbon emissions and climate change in their decision-making.
8. Arming Millions of Davids Against Wall Street Goliaths
Elon Musk has called for “deleting” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What’s his problem with this federal agency? For Musk and his finance bro buddies, it appears the CFPB has been overly effective in helping ordinary Americans stand up to big money interests.
Recently the agency announced it’s forcing shady “credit repair” companies to return $1.8 billion in illegal junk fees to 4.3 million Americans. The agency also just issued new limits on overdraft fees that will save consumers billions more. During its nearly 14-year history, the CFPB has won nearly $21 billion in compensation for victims of fraud, racial discrimination in lending, and other financial abuse.
“Weakening the CFPB, slowing its work, or steering it to favor industry over the public interest,” explains the advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, “would give bad actors a green light to do their worst and further deepen this country’s racial wealth gap.”
9. Public Money for the Public Good
For four decades, procurement rules made it difficult for local and state policymakers to ensure that federally funded projects create good jobs. With megabillions in new public investment about to flow into infrastructure and clean energy projects, a labor-community alliance known as the Local Opportunities Coalition led the charge to get rid of these anti-worker vestiges of the conservative Reagan era.
Finally, in 2024, the Biden administration got the job done. Now state and local governments can give companies a leg up in bidding competitions if they commit to creating specific numbers of jobs with minimum levels of pay and benefits. They can also require hiring preferences for local workers and disadvantaged communities, ban the use of contract funds for union-busting, and prohibit employers from misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” to skirt labor laws.
10. Communities Standing up for Quality Care
Whatever happens on the national political stage over the next four years, local communities can still win important fights for a more just society.
One particularly inspiring example from 2024: the battles to protect county-owned nursing homes in rural Wisconsin against privatization. Study after study has shown that private equity-owned facilities have lower-quality care and higher mortality rates. And yet many Republican lawmakers are backing for-profit corporations’ efforts to take over this critical service.
As veteran community organizer George Goehl has reported, Wisconsin seniors put up a strong fight this year. They succeeded in ousting pro-privatization members of at least three county boards and are continuing to organize to protect their healthcare from corporate greed.
Champions in the fight against inequality face formidable challenges. But by working together at all levels—from the shop floor to state houses to the halls of Congress—we can still find ways to build power and move our country towards a just economy that works for everyone.
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