During the United Auto Workers’ “Stand Up Strike” two years ago, The Detroit News published a bombshell exclusive that never got the attention it deserved. It’s worth revisiting now that New York City has elected avowed democratic socialist Zohran, “let’s globalize the intifada,” Mamdani.
At first blush, Gotham politics might seem a world away from the UAW’s factory roots. They’re not. Shawn Fain’s questionable record as a labor leader—some UAW members are reportedly angling to remove him—is a cautionary omen for Mamdani’s Robin Hood economics.
The UAW proudly notes it was the first union to endorse Mamdani, which makes sense given that UAW President Shawn Fain’s aggrieved working-class rhetoric has proven little more than political theater. Fain may forever be remembered for his “Eat the Rich” T-shirt and his Facebook Live monologues vowing to take on GM, Ford, and Stellantis.
The Detroit Three have easily outmaneuvered Fain. He hasn’t even taken a bite-sized appetizer from the obscene compensation packages executives have collected while failing miserably on their EV ambitions—failures that are increasingly costing thousands of UAW members their jobs.
Less discussed is how deeply the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) influence the UAW—and how both the DSA and its allies, including the UAW, have embraced virulently anti-Israel positions that many critics regard as unmistakably antisemitic. Al Jazeera reported that Mamdani has been a member of the DSA since 2017.
Fain’s close ties to Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib are also part of Mamdani’s political ecosystem. Tlaib, who was named the 2023 “Antisemite of the Year” by StopAntisemitism.org—beating even Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh—appeared with Fain at a Washington rally only weeks after Hamas’s October 7 massacre to demand an immediate cease-fire.
“I’m a proud daughter of a UAW worker, and I know my Yaba (father) would be so proud,” Tlaib told the cheering crowd.
Mamdani called Tlaib his “hero” in 2020—when he was still largely unknown—saying it wasn’t because she’s Muslim or a fellow DSA member but because “she rallied the multiracial working class around a socialist vision for justice.” That’s the ideological company Fain keeps—and it matters.
The Forgotten Detroit News Scoop
Back in 2023, The Detroit News obtained private messages written by Jonah Furman, the UAW’s communications director, in a group chat on Elon Musk’s X platform. Furman bragged that UAW negotiators were using the strike to inflict “recurring reputational damage and operational chaos” on the Detroit Three automakers.
“If we can keep them wounded for months, they don’t know what to do,” he wrote. “The beauty is we’ve laid it all out in public and they’re still helpless to stop it.”
That line revealed much about the current culture of the UAW. Furman wasn’t lamenting corporate greed or fighting for a fair contract—he was exulting in strategic harm, as though GM, Ford, and Stellantis were ideological enemies rather than the source of his members’ paychecks.
When The News published the story in October 2023, I assumed Fain would fire him. He didn’t.
There’s good money to be made waging class warfare on behalf of blue-collar autoworkers. According to federal filings, Furman in 2024 was paid $175,318, up 64 percent from $106,667 the year before.
Who Is Jonah Furman?
Furman’s résumé explains plenty. He served as Bernie Sanders’s national labor organizer in 2020 and worked as a political organizer for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He co-chaired the Metro DC chapter of the DSA Labor Working Group—an organization that, in its own words, “stands in unwavering solidarity” with pro-Palestinian encampments on U.S. campuses and “their righteous message.”
According to a biography from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, Furman was raised in Evanston, Illinois, an affluent Chicago suburb on Lake Michigan with a significant Jewish population and several kosher restaurants. He attended Johns Hopkins University and spent four years touring with a band before turning to labor activism. Furman’s bio notes that he is interested in “radical approaches to work and wages (basic income, work refusal) and the histories of those approaches.”
One could hardly design a communications chief less tethered to the UAW’s historic mission of fighting for job security and worker dignity for American autoworkers. Championing the Palestinian cause does nothing to improve the lives of hourly employees on Detroit’s factory floors. Notably, most Middle Eastern nations don’t tolerate independent unions, while unionism is deeply rooted in Israel’s history—the Histadrut labor federation was founded long before the state itself and remains one of the country’s most powerful and left-leaning institutions.
Played by GM’s Mary Barra
Although President Biden and much of the media lionized Fain for his “historic” contract that supposedly squeezed every last possible dollar from the Detroit Three, GM CEO Mary Barra quickly revealed how deftly she played him.
During contract negotiations, Barra feigned that Fain’s demands would cripple the company. After letting him take his victory lap, she assured Wall Street the deal was manageable—then delivered the real gut punch: a $10 billion stock buyback, greater than the total wage gains Fain secured over the life of the contract.
For good measure, GM later announced it would build its new Cadillac Optiq EV in Mexico—apparently unfazed by Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House or his threats of punitive tariffs.
Stellantis, meanwhile, laid off thousands of workers after agreeing to Fain’s demands, and Ford CEO Jim Farley openly threatened to move more jobs to Mexico. Ford’s most profitable plant was the UAW’s first strike target, despite Ford employing more UAW workers than GM and Stellantis.
As for “eating the rich,” Barra pocketed $28 million in 2023 and $29.5 million in 2024, while Ford’s Farley earned nearly as much. Barra has since authorized another $15 billion in stock buybacks, helping lift GM’s chronically underperforming share price.
UAW members are fast being thrown under the bus as GM and Ford retreat from their EV misadventures. Ford is reportedly considering discontinuing its electric Lightning pickup, built in Dearborn. Given that the Lightning is the top-selling electric pickup, that doesn’t bode well for workers at GM’s Factory Zero in Detroit, which builds electric versions of GM’s slow-selling pickups and SUVs.
GM hasn’t laid off any of its 25,000 workers in Mexico, where it remains the country’s largest vehicle manufacturer.
Fain’s Biden/Harris Endorsement
Fain spent millions of union dues first supporting Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris—both of whom have allowed GM’s Barra to move more jobs to Mexico while continuing to subsidize GM’s and Ford’s EV businesses. Fain derided Donald Trump as a “scab,” despite Trump’s pledge to impose tariffs and revitalize U.S. manufacturing.
Fain now sings Trump’s praises as GM and Ford retreat from their EV ambitions and repatriate some Canadian jobs. It’s apparently lost on him that Trump is no fan of unions and that the Department of Labor will almost certainly be weakened by the Trump administration.
And for all Fain’s belated hailing of Trump, the president dismissed him during the campaign as a “dope.”
Union Antisemitism
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), a UAW New York City local and the oldest union of attorneys and legal advocates in the United States, passed an anti-Israel resolution just weeks after Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Following the resolution’s adoption, it was alleged that the statutory rights of union members were violated through retaliatory actions.
From a report released in October 2024 by the Republican Staff Report, House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC):
Antisemitism has no place in any civil society, and unions that engage in divisive, anti-Israel politics must be held accountable. This report pinpoints the caustic, antisemitic ideology that has consumed many unions, ALAA in particular, while providing commonsense legislative prescriptions… The time for accountability is now.
Foxx wasn’t alone in alleging undemocratic UAW practices. Fain’s 2022–23 election was decided by fewer than one in ten eligible members, according to Labor Department data—a turnout so low it raised immediate questions about his mandate. A 36-page Labor Department review found the process compliant with union rules, but some of the UAW’s far-left members, including socialist Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman, accused the union of disenfranchising rank-and-file members.
Why Mamdani Matters
Many Americans outside New York City assume Mamdani’s election isn’t nationally significant. In fact, it’s a major victory for the Democratic Socialists of America—whose young, untested leadership, virulent antisemitism, and naïve economics are increasingly resonating with Gen Z voters who feel they have no future under either political party. Historically, Jews have served as convenient scapegoats when economic disparities reach crisis proportions, as they have in America.
How fast is the DSA’s agenda spreading? The Ithaca Common Council, home to Cornell University, last week elected 20-year-old Hannah Shvets, an avowed Texas-born Communist who posed with a Mamdani cutout and was endorsed by the DSA. She is reportedly the youngest DSA-backed candidate ever elected.
Not surprisingly, Shvets participated in multiple anti-Israel protests after Hamas’s October 7 attack, according to People’s World, a leftist publication that applauded her victory.
Food for thought for anyone purchasing a UAW union-made vehicle.