Auto Workers Fight for Basic Fairness

Sep 13, 2023

Autoworkers are readying themselves for a potential strike as with the so-called 鈥淏ig Three鈥� drag on. The United Auto Workers (UAW) is negotiating on behalf of nearly 150,000 workers at Detroit-based auto manufacturing plants run by Ford, GM, and Stellantis N.V. At face value, UAW鈥檚 sound audacious: a and a , among other things. But given the decades-long decline in labor rights and wages, is it unreasonable?

Cedric de Leon, professor of sociology and labor studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst spoke with 大象传媒 Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the potential auto workers鈥� strike and why UAW鈥檚 demands are framed around a people-centered economy.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.