Dear UAW Sibling,

UAW members in Region 6 have spent the past month in action, rallying in Sacramento to fight for science funding, taking to the streets for mass labor and community marches on May Day, advancing new organizing campaigns, convening in Pico Rivera for the Political Action and Leadership Conference, and more. Keep reading for key updates and ways you can plug in to ongoing work.

Thousands Rally for California Science

On Monday May 4, thousands of workers, researchers, and community members flooded Sacramento to demand the passage of the California Science and Health Research Bond Act (SB 895) UAW President Shawn Fain joined the rally and gave powerful remarks about the importance of science funding for working people – from advancements in cancer and Alzheimer’s treatments, to wildfire and flood resilience, and more. Together with our broader community, UAW members clearly demonstrated to state leaders that Californians back science, and we’re organizing to win the funding, protections, and access our communities deserve.

On May 14, the California Science & Health Research Bond cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee. It now heads to the floor for a vote. The fight to pass SB 895 continues – help keep the momentum going and show that science funding is a priority for working people by signing on to the petition today!

Political Action and Leadership Conference Recap

On April 25 and 26, five hundred UAW members and workers on new organizing campaigns from across Region 6 convened in Pico Rivera for the 2026 Political Action and Leadership Conference. The conference brought together member leaders of all experience levels to make connections, learn from each other, and sharpen our strategies for building power as working people to advance our needs. As a big group, we took stock of the current political moment and how we can take action as UAW members. Up against the political and economic power of the billionaire class, the best opportunity working people have to build real power to advance our needs is to dramatically increase the number of workers who are union members.

To put that strategic priority into action, members participated in workshops to build skills on topics like 1-1 organizing, contract enforcement, and passing pro-worker legislation. And in planning breakouts, members made plans for the UAW Constitutional Convention, the California science funding bond campaign, May Day, and advancing Local and organizing campaign work. Check out Director Mike Miller’s message below for more details.

Next up: Region 6 Summer School is July 23–26 at Cal State Los Angeles! Summer School will bring together hundreds of members from across Region 6 for classes, workshops, and activities to build skills, connections, and strategies for advancing our power as a movement of working people. All members are encouraged to join. Contact your Local for more information.

In Members’ Words: What did you get the most out of at the Leadership Conference?

“Getting to meet folks from all over and talk about how we can advance our working class agenda and build power by organizing the unorganized.”
“The opportunity to think realistically about our challenges and plan actionable solutions. Also the opportunity to meet so many members from other locals and really comprehend the massiveness and collective power of our region!!”
“I think learning what I don’t know, I am a first year member, so this was helpful in giving me a learning starting point!”
“This gave me renewed energy to strategize and make changes to how we’re doing things now.”
“I really got excited about working on growing our collective capacity through continuous improvement and collaboration in our workplaces and locals. I’m inspired to bring the escalation plans for the science bond and May Day back to my local.”
“Bringing everyone together was very inspiring as always.”
“I love being surrounded by people who are motivated to get shit done. The time at this conference was well spent. Rather than sulking about the current conditions, we’re learning effective strategies.”

UA Staff Win Union Election! The Fight Continues

Staff at University of Alaska won their union election last month, with 64% voting union YES! They are now the largest group of unionized employees in UA history and the largest new union in Alaska in decades. This union election victory was made possible by the hundreds of UA Staff who spent the last year having thousands of conversations with their coworkers across the UA system. They’re ready to begin bargaining a contract that makes UA a more equitable and sustainable workplace for UA Staff.

But now, UA Admin is trying to get the funding for Staff raises removed from the state budget – despite just last month calling Staff raises a critical condition of ongoing stability, and despite both the State House and the Senate UA Finance Subcommittee already including this funding in their proposed budgets. Staff are continuing to organize around this issue, including with a mass sign-on letter to urge the University to once again support funding for Staff raises. Follow along at the CAUSE-UAW Instagram: @causeuaw.

USC Faculty Are Voting to Form a Union!

Research, Teaching, Practitioner, and Clinical faculty at USC are organizing and fighting for recognition of their union United Faculty–UAW! Full-time, part-time, and adjunct non-tenure-track faculty who work in schools and programs across USC are voting on their union from May 15 to June 1. Stay up to date on the election progress by following them on Instagram!

UAW Center for Manufacturing a Green Economy (CMGE) is now on Substack!

Our non-profit sister organization, the UAW Center for Manufacturing a Green Economy, has launched a public Substack, The Just Transmission, as they make the case across our Region for the importance of a worker-centered energy transition. The Substack centers some of our most critical issues: affordability, clean energy manufacturing, quality jobs, and industrial policy to name a few. Readers can expect explainers about various issues, reactions to the news, and editorials with our partners who are also advocating for our vision. Subscribe for free HERE.

Green Industrial Policy

California Grid Manufacturing Initiative (AB-2516)

UAW Region 6 is proudly championing a visionary bill in our industrial policy strategy – AB-2516 (Petrie-Norris) – the California Grid Manufacturing Initiative. We worked with our Just Transition Committee and labor and climate movement allies to write this bill, and we just published a report on what the bill could do. The numbers are whopping: with AB-2516’s supply and demand side interventions into the electric grid manufacturing sector, Californians could save $100-200 billion on their electric bills over the next 20 years. We could create 5,000 direct union manufacturing jobs, and we could close the gap to installing 4.5 Gigawatts of renewable energy on the grid, which is currently stalled due to equipment shortages. Read the report and about the bill here. For a synopsis, see the article published by our colleagues at the Climate and Community Institute, which highlights how passing this bill could help with the affordability crisis.

California Environmental Quality Act (SB-954)

We’re also working to defend our rights as workers in the manufacturing sector by advancing a very important bill, SB-954 (Blakespear). Last year, California’s legislature made a grave mistake in rushing through a major bill SB-131 in 24 short hours to eliminate permitting requirements on advanced manufacturing projects. This put our climate, our natural lands, and of course our workers at risk. It also took away a very important tool for creating good jobs and benefits for local communities. We’ve been working hard on passing SB-954, which includes labor, environmental and community standards on manufacturing projects. It just cleared its first two committees in the state senate.

May Day

On International Workers’ Day, UAW members joined thousands of fellow union and community members for rallies and marches all across the Western States, including LA, the Bay Area, Seattle, Bellingham, Eugene, and more. Across the country, working people are taking action for immigrant justice and to win a world where all working people can really thrive – not one that caters to the interests of billionaires. Onward!

Message from Region 6 Director Mike Miller

It was great meeting with many of you at the Region 6 Political Action and Leadership Conference last weekend, both to take stock of the current moment and strategize how we can propel a better world for working people. The neoliberal political consensus of the past fifty years has been a disaster in many ways. It is responsible for radical wealth and income inequality, political inequality, precarious and part-time work, deindustrialization, climate crisis, inadequate and expensive healthcare, hunger, homelessness, and so much more. The cumulative effect of these dynamics laid the foundations for fascist demagogues worldwide to exploit. In the United States, Donald Trump cynically seized on the suffering of so many people to ride the discontent of working people into the White House – twice.

But he did not achieve this alone. He was aided by the lack of any effective opposition or meaningful challenge to the ideology buttressing the status quo. He exploits the economic hardship experienced by many to pit working people against one another who might otherwise be allies. And efforts to resist his divide-and-conquer tactics are often met with new targets for demonization, distraction, and repression, including unleashing violent militias to terrorize communities, suppress dissent, and murder protestors. This assault on the working class has been flanked by favoritism for the rich and powerful – tax breaks, government contracts (including for his own family), quashing antitrust enforcement, and disempowering federal agencies that would investigate and prosecute this graft.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1970s, the strength of the labor and other social movements contributed to the progress in the New Deal and Great Society reforms for equality and justice as well as the accomplishments of so many other social movements: civil rights, environmental, anti-war, LGBTQ+, feminist, and many more. Measure after measure, life is better for working people in states with higher union density – from unemployment benefits, to affordable healthcare, to living wages, and beyond. Our challenge in the labor movement is to reverse the decline in union membership and take back real power for working people. And according to a 2025 EPI survey, 43% of non-union workers would vote to unionize their workplace if given the opportunity. That’s 56 million workers who are waiting for the chance to organize right now.

There are two major ways Region 6 members can dramatically increase our power as working people: organizing new workplaces to bring more workers into the movement, and signing up more workers in existing workplaces for union membership. Across Region 6, UAW members are already doing their part. Since December 2022, when the region was reconstituted, 38,625 workers have won recognition. In 2026 so far, 5,200 have won recognition. And Region 6 members are winning contracts in unit after unit across a number of industries – higher education, manufacturing, aerospace, and more. We are signing up more members and organizing workplaces across the region to increase density and exercise power, both in contract negotiations and the political sphere.

At the Leadership Conference, members began discussing strategic opportunities for increasing internal and external organizing, and committed to making dedicated plans in their Locals and Campaigns to dramatically increase the number of workers who are union members. At Region 6 Summer School in July, we’ll reconvene to discuss what strategies are working, what challenges are coming up, and where we can continue building.

Upcoming Events

UAW Constitutional Convention, June 15-18, Detroit, MI.
Region 6 Summer School, July 23-26, Cal State Los Angeles. Locals can expect to receive the call letter with more information soon.
Labor conferences around the country: Contact your Local for more info!
- UAW Chaplaincy Conference, May 17-22, Onaway, MI.
- Convention of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, May 20-24, Atlanta, GA.
- Labor Notes Conference, June 12-14, Chicago, IL.
- UAW Family Scholarship Program, July 12-17, Onaway, MI.
- A. Philip Randolph Institute’s National Education Conference, July 22-26, New Orleans, LA.
- UAW Veteran’s Conference, August 9-14, Onaway, MI.
- Union Hall Arts Residency, August 10-September 7, Detroit, MI. UAW members who are selected to participate will be sponsored by the UAW Education Department.
- UAW Civil and Human Rights Conference, August 23-28, Onaway, MI.
- UAW Bargaining and Contract Enforcement Bootcamp, September 20-25, Onaway, MI.
- UAW Member Mobilization, September 27-October 2, Onaway, MI.

April Newsletter: Thousands Rally for CA Science, Organizing Updates, & More