Ballots for the UAW elections went out on August 21st. If you are a UAW member and you have not received it, something is wrong and you only have until September 23 to fix it.
My name is Will Lehman. I work at the Mack Trucks plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania and I’m running for president of the UAW.
There are three important dates coming up in this election. September 23 is the last date to request a replacement ballot, and you can do that at uawvote.com. September 30 is the last day you can be behind on dues and still have your vote counted. October 5 is the day your ballot has to be received. If you miss any one of those deadlines, they will not count your vote. Your local union is supposed to be telling you all of this, but in all likelihood they have said nothing.
The rules let a local satisfy their obligations with a link on a website or a notice in a hall most of us never walk into. That’s exactly what most of them have done, because the bureaucrats running this union have no interest in a large turnout. Four years ago, in the first direct election of international officers in this union’s history, only 9% of the membership voted. That is the lowest turnout of any national union election in American history. More ballots came back marked undeliverable than were ever cast. At one California university local with over 11,000 members, only 29 ballots were returned.
This was not because of apathy. It was because of voter suppression. A worker who does not get a ballot cannot mail one back. Shawn Fain was installed in the runoff with the votes of only 6% of us. During the last election, I filed complaints over the vote suppression. And when the Labor Department threw them out, I sued. In June of 2024, a federal judge ruled that the department had acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The result was allowed to stand anyway under two administrations, both Democratic and Republican. No court and no federal agency will fix this. The only people who are going to tell the workers in your plant that this election is even happening are you and your co-workers, united in a rank-and-file election committee.
When you get your ballot, I ask you to vote for me, but more importantly, start getting organized today. Find out who on your shift has a ballot and who never got one. Share this video as widely as possible and build a rank-and-file committee in your plant to coordinate this work and make sure the same voter suppression doesn’t happen again.
Contact my campaign and we will help you build a committee. Our power can only be wielded as greatly as our organization and solidarity on the floor. Thank you.
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