Observers of the US labor movement have become very accustomed to delivering bad news in recent decades. But last year forced us to break with established custom: labor was moving and even occasionally winning. Nowhere was such movement more spectacular than in the UAW, which under the new leadership of reformer Shawn Fain waged a historic strike against the Big 3 automakers that won huge raises for auto workers and was widely hailed as a victory for a union that has seen massive contract givebacks and erosion of workers’ pay, benefits, and working conditions in recent decades.

The question after the victory is the same that many ask after any big labor win: does the 2023 UAW strike portend a broader change in American labor’s fortunes? It’s too soon to know for sure, of course, but no one is better positioned to venture some educated guesses rooted in labor’s past and present than historian Nelson Lichtenstein, author of the classic biography of former UAW president Walter Reuther, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor, and many other books on labor, as well as a piece in our Spring 2024 issue assessing last year’s strike.

For our podcast Reinventing Solidarity, New Labor Forum’s new editor-at-large Micah Uetricht spoke to Lichtenstein about his piece, the years of deep corruption in the union and decades of reform efforts that came to fruition in Fain’s election, the new president’s bold leadership style and populist messaging, the union’s recent call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the UAW’s new organizing initiatives among nonunion automakers throughout the country, and more.  

The United Auto Workers achieved a real breakthrough in their 2023 strike against the Big Three automakers. For this episode, our new editor-at-large Micah Uetricht interviews longtime labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein about his piece in the Spring 2024 issue of New Labor Forum assessing the wins in the contract, the corruption scandals and subsequent new union leadership victory that led to the strike, the UAW’s prospects for riding this momentum into organizing nonunion automakers like Volkswagen and Tesla, and more.

Listen here: SLU.CUNY.EDU/PODCAST