Shawn Fain at the White House dinner: The UAW apparatus “goes to war” for Biden

Notable among the guests at the state dinner hosted by President Biden for Japanese Prime Minister Kishida on Wednesday was UAW president Shawn Fain. Fain joined top chief executives and military-intelligence officials in an event aimed at cementing the US-Japanese preparations for conflict with China.

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Amidst a field of flowers and silk butterflies, Fain supped on dry-aged ribeye and a “fricassée of fava beans” (according to the First Lady) alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, CIA Director William Burns, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the butcher of Gaza.

Fain’s participation in the event expresses, through the ceremonial pomp of a state dinner, the Democrats’ strategy of “corporatism,” that is, the integration of the trade union apparatus into the corporate-state-military apparatus.

The immediate issue is the escalating conflict with China. As part of the preparation for war, Japan is set to join the AUKUS military pact between the US, Britain and Australia. Both the genocide in Gaza and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine are seen by the ruling class as part of a global war that includes, centrally, a confrontation with China.

The role of Fain & Co. in the union apparatus is to discipline the working class, suppress the class struggle and back the ruling class war policy. When the UAW endorsed Biden in January, UAW members protesting the genocide were dragged away by the Secret Service as Fain stood by.

Fain said to Biden that it was “time for us to go to war and put the power of the membership behind you.” The UAW president was in fact pledging to Biden to send workers to fight and die in wars on behalf of US imperialism.

The war abroad is at the same time a war on the working class at home. The massive sums allocated to the military must be paid for through intensified exploitation and the gutting of social programs and infrastructure.

Fain played his assigned role during the UAW “stand-up strike” (in reality, a bend over strike), which kept the vast majority of workers on the job as the union apparatus worked with Biden and the companies to ram through concessions contracts.

Among the most significant results of these contracts is the mass layoffs that have only just begun, as the auto companies transition to EV production as part of the competition with China.

The fight of workers against corporate exploitation requires the development of a rank-and-rebellion against the apparatus. At the same time, the fight against war must be rooted in the industrial and political mobilization of the working class.

The development of a movement in the working class against the war of the capitalist class at home must be connected to a fight against the war of the capitalist war abroad. It is, in reality, one war. In both fronts of this war, the union apparatus stands on the side of the corporations and the ruling class, against the workers.

Fain came to the head of the UAW after an election in 2022 that involved the deliberate suppression of the vote, as the bureaucracy was terrified of the campaign of rank-and-file autoworker and socialist Will Lehman. Lehman called for the abolition of the bureaucracy and the transfer of power to the workers through the development of a network of rank-and-file committees.

Fain became president promising reforms, but he has tied the UAW apparatus even more closely to the Democratic Party. A central role in this is performed by individuals in and around pro-war, pseudo-left groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and Labor Notes. Their six-figure salaries come with new responsibilities for policing the working class.

The Socialist Equality Party campaign is devoted to developing an industrial and political counter-offensive of the working class. We call for the formation of independent rank-and-file committees in every industry, to unite workers throughout the world against the corporations and their servants in the trade union apparatus.

And we are building a socialist leadership in the working class, to connect opposition to genocide and war to the fight against inequality, exploitation and the capitalist profit system.