Author: Abe Walker

Abe Walker is the author of the new book, Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South, available now from Temple University Press.

The Battle for the Soul of the UAW: Union Democracy and the Seductions of Power

By: Abe WalkerSeptember 29, 2026

The Fain administration’s efforts to consolidate its hold on power reveal the difficulty of sustaining a cohesive vision once the immediate enemy has been vanquished. Fain now finds himself grappling with the same oligarchic tendencies he was elected to eradicate. But those who accuse Fain and company of betrayal might be reminded that union democracy cannot rely on the benevolent intentions of elected leaders.

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The New Politics Summer 2026 issue is now in the hands of subscribers, featuring articles on Democracy versus Degeneration in the United States (with contributions by Dan La Botz, Ellen Schrecker on McCarthyism Then and Now interviewed by Elizabeth Rapaport, Ben Silverman on the fascism debate, Samuel Farber on free speech, Samuel Barney on rural prisons, and Raoul Cansino and Bill Kelly on nativism), Imperialism Around the World (with articles by Lisbeth Moya González on Cuba, Husam Mahjoub on Sudan, Siyavash Shahabi and imperialism and the working class, and Matt Benson on the Mapuche in Chile), interviews on labor struggles and Russian political prisoners, a history of the International Socialists, review essays by Frieda Afary on AI, Javier Sethness on Western Marxism, and Peter Drucker on Molly Crabapple, as well as reviews on Ukraine, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, white rage, South Asia, and Afghanistan, plus a letter on women under the Taliban.

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