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united auto workers
'A Strong Working-Class Agenda With Moral Clarity': UAW Endorses Abdul El-Sayed
In what could be his most important endorsement in the tight Senate primary, Michigan's largest and most influential union said El-Sayed was "someone we can trust to have our backs."
Jun 05, 2026
Momentum behind Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive hopeful for Michigan's US Senate seat, continued to build on Friday when the candidate won a major endorsement from the state's largest and most influential labor union, the United Auto Workers.
"The UAW is proud to endorse Abdul El-Sayed for US Senate," the union said in a post to social media. "UAW members in Michigan want a fighter in Washington, DC who isn’t afraid to push forward a strong working-class agenda with moral clarity."
"Having never taken a dime from corporate PACs, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is someone we can trust to have our backs," the union continued. "From Medicare for All to banning stock buybacks, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is ready, eager, and well-equipped to move our core issues in the US Senate."
Despite stronger establishment backing for his opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8), recent polls show El-Sayed, Detroit's former health director, as a narrow frontrunner for the Democratic primary scheduled for early August, where the winner is expected to face the Republican former US Rep. Mike Rogers for the vacant Senate seat.
El-Sayed has won the endorsements of other unions, such as National Nurses United; progressive groups, including the Working Families Party; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and several like-minded Democrats, such as Michigan’s US Rep. Rashida Tlaib; Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.); and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
But the endorsement of the storied UAW, which boasts over 350,000 active and retired members in Michigan, might be his biggest yet as he seeks to transition fully from insurgent to frontrunner.
"I am so honored and humbled," El-Sayed said on social media as he prepared to join striking UAW Local 2093 American Axle workers on the picket line in Three Rivers on Friday. "Michigan union autoworkers built the American middle class and proved that when people stand together, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. Solidarity forever."
Dan Merica, a reporter at The Washington Post, noted that losing the UAW endorsement to El-Sayed was a particularly big blow to Stevens, "who is running as a technocrat, often referring to herself as a 'manufacturing geek' because of her work as one of President Barack Obama’s top officials on the 2009 auto rescue."
It could have major implications in a race that is not only critical for deciding the balance of power in the Senate this November, but is widely perceived as a battle for the future of the Democratic Party.
Michigan's importance is surely not lost on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The New York Times reported on Friday that despite a public stance of neutrality, he is working behind the scenes to push party donors to support Stevens, the most conservative Democrat in the three-way race. The representative for suburban Detroit recently came under scrutiny over her backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the for-profit health insurance industry.
In response to what The Washington Post described as the establishment’s “concerted bid to hew to the political center,” the progressive advocacy group MoveOn said, “Once again the Democratic establishment seems to think it knows what’s best for voters [more] than voters themselves,” and congratulated El-Sayed on his endorsement.
"There’s a reason his campaign is inspiring people all over the state," said MoveOn's chief communications officer Joel Payne. "His economic populism resonates with Michiganders who are sick of lip service, dark money, and politicians who don’t seem to get their day-to-day struggles."
"Those in congressional cloakrooms and in the establishment class in DC may not like it," he continued, "but real Michiganders continue to make their support for El-Sayed’s economic populism and people-centered agenda clear.”
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‘Historic Victory’: Volkswagen Workers Ratify First Union Contract at Southern Auto Plant
"Southern autoworkers are standing up, and I expect many more to follow Volkswagen’s lead," said the director of United Auto Workers Region8.
Feb 20, 2026
Organized labor scored a massive win in the US South on Thursday as Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted with 96% support to ratify their first union contract, a four-year deal that includes significant wage increases, reduced healthcare costs, and stronger job-security protections.
The contract ratification vote came nearly two years after the Chattanooga Volkswagen workers voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), which called the vote a "historic victory." The UAW is leading a concerted effort to unionize workplaces in the South, where so-called "right-to-work" laws and Republican-controlled governments' hostility to labor have made organizing extremely difficult.
"Southern autoworkers are standing up, and I expect many more to follow Volkswagen’s lead,” said Tim Smith, director of UAW Region 8, following the contract vote. “Workers are done being left behind, and VW is just the first step towards justice for autoworkers everywhere. Who are we? U-A-W!”
Shawn Fain, the UAW's president, said that Volkswagen workers have "moved yet another mountain."
“From having the courage to stand up and form their union, to having the backbone to authorize a strike and hold out for a contract that honors their worth, VW workers are leading the way for the entire labor movement and non-union autoworkers everywhere," said Fain. "Welcome to the UAW family."
The union victory at the German automaker's lone active manufacturing plant in the US was seen as a critical breakthrough for Southern organizing efforts. The AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation in the US, called the Volkswagen contract vote "an inspiring and historic milestone for working people in the South."
The UAW's bargaining committee at the Chattanooga plant celebrated the win but stressed that ratification is just the first step.
"The next step is enforcing it," the committee said. "The strongest way to make sure every raise is paid, management follows every safety rule, and every right is respected is simple: Become a member. Membership means collective strength. Membership means protection. Membership means that when the contract is tested—and it will be—workers stand united and ready to defend what they fought to win."
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Trump-Heckling Auto Worker Keeps His Job and Faces No Discipline: UAW
"That's a union brother who spoke up," said UAW president Shawn Fain. "He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work."
Feb 09, 2026
TJ Sabula, the auto worker who called President Donald Trump a “pedophile protector" last month, is reportedly keeping his job.
According to a report from the Detroit News, United Auto Workers (UAW) vice president Laura Dickerson said on Monday that Sabula is not getting fired from his job at a Ford truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and he will not face any discipline for his heckling of the president.
Dickerson, who discussed Sabula's case at the UAW's annual Community Action Program conference in Washington, DC, also took a shot at Trump for giving Sabula the middle finger while appearing to mouth or yell “fuck you” back at the auto worker.
"In that moment, we saw what the president really thinks about working people," Dickerson said. "As UAW members, we speak truth to power. We don't just protect rights, we exercise them."
UAW president Shawn Fain also took time during the conference to offer appreciation for Sabula, the Detroit News reported.
"That's a union brother who spoke up," said Fain. "He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work."
Sabula, who said he decided to called Trump a "pedophile protecter" for his attempts to block the release of files related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had been suspended from his job after the incident took place.
Critics of the president quickly rushed to Sabula's aid, however, as two separate GoFundMe campaigns aimed at raising money for the auto worker raked in a total of over $800,000.
In an interview published last month by the Washington Post, Sabula said he had “no regrets whatsoever” about yelling at the president, even though it led to his suspension.
“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” Sabula told the Post. “And today I think I did that.”
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