Dear UAW sibling,

Over the last few months, working people have faced a series of serious attacks from the Trump administration and his allies – attacks on lifesaving research, healthcare, and education funding, on international worker and immigrant rights, on free speech, and more. While those in power want working people to believe that these individual fights are all separate issues, UAW members have been organizing to build mass collective action and solidarity to unite working people across issues in shared struggle. And all over Region 6, UAW members have been stepping up to build the worker-led labor movement that can meet this moment, both to defend against Trump’s attacks and to advance a positive agenda. Read on to learn more about what fellow UAW members have been organizing for – and winning – and how you can plug in.

Kill The Cuts

On April 8, thousands of UAW members across the country took action to demand no cuts be made to life-saving research, healthcare, and education. Since then, members have been continuing to organize to build power around the Kill the Cuts campaign, including by lobbying Congressional Reps and Senators, organizing for research funding at the state level, participating in lawsuits, and more. Keep reading to learn about the experience of a UAW 4591 member lobbying a Republican Congressman in Washington state, and further down learn more about how UAW members in California are pushing to establish a state-level research institution.

Chia-Hui Chen (Local 4591, Washington State University)

We all know that research is vital for making sensible policies that are crucial to the wellbeing of a society. Facing a proposed 60% budget cut of the NIH from the current administration, we as student employees working on NIH-funded research at Washington State University reached out to the office of our regional congressman Baumgartner (Republican, WA CD5). I told the staff about the current dire situation facing my department even before the devastating budget cut and emphasized how biomedical research, in my case prostate cancer, is critical to the health and even the economy of the US. Our message seemed to be received well, and the staff appeared to be genuinely interested. Regardless of the reception, I think it is crucial that we make ourselves heard and be proactive as a force to make the society a better place, and I think we should be proud of what we did in the meeting as a union. We should keep up the organizing and treat this very important issue with the urgency it deserves.

Injury to One Conference Recap

Earlier this month, more than 100 members came together in Seattle for the 2025 Region 6 An Injury to One Is an Injury to All Conference. Together, members discussed how we can integrate issues of social justice into every aspect of union work, strategized building a united working class approach, and practiced engaging our coworkers in difficult conversations. Some of the more specific topics included:

Building international worker organizing and solidarity: Since regaining the presidency, Donald Trump has mounted ferocious attacks on international workers, including by attempting to cut university funding and cancel student visas, impacting more than 1,500 people at 280 colleges and universities in 23 states. At the conference, members discussed how UAW members’ active organizing has been successful at pushing back against these attacks – for instance by pressuring the Trump administration to reverse thousands of visa revocations – and discussed strategies for building international worker leadership and empowering coworkers to move from fear to collective action.
Defending public research and equity initiatives: Through a case study on the history of ACT UP, members discussed lessons we can take from the history of AIDS activism to apply towards today’s fight to defend research funding. Members also practiced having effective organizing conversations to help coworkers draw connections between the Trump administration’s attacks on public research, DEI programs, international workers, and trans workers – and move each other to take strategic action.
Expanding member leadership by using issue-based campaigns and different elements of union work – e.g., contract enforcement, bargaining campaigns, direct actions, lobbying elected officials, etc – as opportunities to help new leaders develop skills and learn through participation.

Region 6 Summer School: July 24–27 in Los Angeles

2025 Region 6 Summer School will be July 24–27 at Cal State Los Angeles! Summer School is an opportunity to come together with members from across the Region for a week of deep-dive classes, focused skill-building workshops, and collaborative strategizing. Together, members will develop skills, analysis, and plans for building strong membership, political action, and new organizing – all to put to use in active efforts across the Region, including defending public research funding, fighting for the rights of international scholars, winning record contracts, advancing climate justice, preparing for May Day 2028, and much more. Conference registration is due June 26, 2025. Contact your Local for more information and to join!

Weigh In on Region 6 Online Merch Store!

Following requests from members for more access to high-quality, union-made Region 6 merch, the Region 6 Education & Communications Committee is exploring setting up an online merch store! To help strategize which products members will be most excited about purchasing and using regularly, please fill out this short poll.

California Lobby Day

On May 14, 49 UAW Region 6 members across Locals and sectors went to Sacramento, CA to lobby for three priority bills with our elected leaders: SB-787, SB-829, and AB-694. The federal cuts to science and clean energy funding are putting our jobs and lives under attack, and passage of these bills would serve to Trump-proof California on several fronts. UAW members met with over 50 legislators and their staff to discuss the importance of this legislation, and many state senators and assembly members responded favorably. Some even pledged to sign on as co-authors to the bills.

SB-787 is a UAW-sponsored bill and Region 6 priority. Known as the Equitable Clean Energy Supply Chains bill, it would coordinate the development of the battery supply chain, offshore wind, and heat pump industries, while giving labor and community stakeholders a seat at the table to create good union jobs and drive down consumer prices. SB-829 would create the California Institute for Scientific Research, a state-level institution modeled after the NIH that would ensure the continuance of life-saving health research even as the Trump administration attempts to cut the NIH. Lastly, AB-694 addresses occupational health and safety, seeking to strengthen health and safety enforcement.

Message from Region 6 Director Mike Miller

It is no secret that the working class has gotten a raw deal over the past few decades of neoliberal rule. Industrial and trade policies skewed to serve corporate profits and interests have redounded to the detriment of workers everywhere. Public anger over economic inequality, inadequate and costly health care coverage, escalating college tuition, unaffordable housing and more has been mounting in recent years – and workers have been demanding change. Unfortunately, the political establishment as a whole has largely failed to respond to these important voices and stirrings of discontent – promising instead that nothing would fundamentally change, and that the billionaire and donor classes would continue to call the shots.

Politicians’ failure to harness public anger and channel it in a progressive direction has led instead to the reactionary agenda of Donald Trump, whose main purpose appears to be lining his own pockets, and those of his family and billionaire friends like Elon Musk. The latter, of course, has hypocritically raked in billions of dollars in government contracts for his companies, even as he goes on a rampage to cut funding and jobs for some tens of thousands of hard-working public servants.

Progressives must – and are – fighting back. In April, I and other Region 6 members joined Bernie Sanders, AOC, and other labor unions in downtown Los Angeles on the Fighting Oligarchy tour, which has galvanized people across the country who are fed up with injustice, fed up with the right wing’s reactionary agenda, and ready to do something about it.

Thirty-six thousand people rallied at Gloria Molina Park, the plaza in front of Los Angeles’ City Hall, to take a stand against the billionaires who rule the country and economy in their own interests.

Together as working people in LA and across the country, we are building a movement in the pursuit of an agenda of inclusion, fairness, and economic security for all. We are fighting back against the attacks on immigrants, the poor, women, people of color, workers, and trans people. We are resisting cuts to public funding for services that working people rely on – including cuts to lifesaving research funding, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, higher education, and more. And we are fighting back against attacks on collective bargaining rights of federal workers. We must stand up to these attacks and expand – not cut – social support.

UAW members have already done incredible work to take on these fights. We must increase the pressure and build the movement for progressive change. Union membership and participation is vital in this endeavor. All members are strongly encouraged to join Region 6 Summer School (July 24-27 at Cal State LA), where members from across the Region will come together to continue strategizing and building skills to take on the coming months with even more power and solidarity.

More Updates from Across the Region

Contract Campaigns: After striking for 10 days, Student Workers at University of Oregon overwhelmingly ratified a strong first contract, with 95% voting yes! The contract includes arbitrable protections for harassment and discrimination, wage increases, just cause protections, and more. At the Wynn in Las Vegas, Local 3555 Dealers won a strong new contract including improvements to job security, discipline, and scheduling. With historic turnout, 97% of members voted to ratify. And Adjunct Faculty at the USC School of Cinematic Arts overwhelmingly ratified an MOU that will codify increased hours or pay for a majority of adjuncts impacted by appointment issues. Many more contract campaigns are ongoing across the Region!
Root & Rebound Strike: Staff at Root & Rebound (Local 2320) are on the 8th week of their Unfair Labor Practices strike. Support Root & Rebound staff by joining the picket line, signing on to the solidarity letter, and contributing to the hardship fund.
New Organizing: Operational Student Employees (OSEs) at Western Washington University voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike with 94% in favor. OSEs are fighting for union recognition, and if the university fails to voluntarily recognize the union and bargain equal contract protections as with Educational Student Employees, OSEs will go on strike on May 28. University of Southern California Research, Teaching, Practitioner, and Clinical faculty continue organizing in their fight to win union recognition despite USC admin’s anti-union tactics. Any many more campaigns are ongoing!
May Day: UAW members across Region 6 joined with broader community coalitions to take action for international worker rights on May Day. Among others, check out the scenes from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle, Pullman, and Sonoma State.

CMGE-UAW is hiring!

The UAW Center for Manufacturing a Green Economy (CMGE) is accepting applications on a rolling basis for a Strategic ClimateTech Researcher to provide high-level research, analysis, and project support. For details on this position and how to apply, please visit the CMGE website.

Upcoming events

Region 6 Education & Communications Committee meeting: May 28, 3-4pm. RSVP here.
Region 6 Just Transition Committee meeting: May 29, 6-7pm via zoom. Fill out this survey to get connected.
Region 6 Gender Justice & Civil Human Rights Committee meeting: June 9, 6-7pm via Zoom. RSVP here.
Region 6 Political Action (CAP/PAC) meeting: June 19, 6-7pm via zoom. RSVP here.
UAW Higher Ed Council meeting: June 21-22 at the Region 6 Office in Pico Rivera, CA. Contact your Local for more info and to join.
Region 6 Summer School: July 24-27 at Cal State Los Angeles. Contact your Local for more info and to join.

The full 2025 UAW Education Department conference schedule includes multiple options upcoming at the Walter & May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, MI. Contact your Local for more info and to join.

Many Fights, One Struggle