Will Lehman—a Mack Trucks worker in Pennsylvania who is running for United Auto Workers president in the union’s elections this year—officially launched a new campaign website on Monday, at WillForUAWPresident.org.
The WSWS has endorsed Lehman, a socialist and second-tier worker, who is calling for the formation of “a mass movement of the rank and file to break the dictatorship of the UAW apparatus and bring power to the shop floor.”
The new site outlines Lehman’s campaign program and a series of demands based on what workers “need, not what the corporations say is acceptable,” including:
- 50 percent pay increases for all
- No layoffs or plant closures
- Abolish the tiered system
- Convert all temps to full-time
- Return of COLA
- Full pension funding
- 8-hour day/40-hour workweek
- 3X overtime pay
Also collected on the new site are a wide range of statements that Lehman has issued since launching his campaign in June which elaborate his program in greater detail and address issues, such as: the history of the UAW; the need for a unified struggle of workers in the US, Mexico and Canada; the spread of monkeypox in the plants and the need for workers’ control over health and safety; and the conditions and struggles of workers in the auto industry, at heavy equipment makers such as CNH and Caterpillar, on the railroads, at the universities and elsewhere.
The site offers a wide range of ways to stay up to date on Lehman’s campaign and the workers’ struggles he is highlighting, including email and text message newsletters.
“I hope to use this site as a platform not just to explain my campaign but as a way to help workers learn about important issues and find out the information that the companies and the UAW bureaucracy don’t want us knowing about,” Lehman told the WSWS. “They want to keep us isolated and in the dark about what’s happening outside our plants, or even within our plants. I want to bring workers together, provide a means to stay informed, and help them organize and link up through rank-and-file committees all over the world.
“I encourage autoworkers and workers everywhere to visit my site, see for themselves what my program is, and if they agree with it, contact my campaign and get involved,” Lehman added.
“And I appeal to all those who read this article: Make as a large a donation as you can to my campaign. Anyone can donate, you don’t have to be an autoworker or a UAW member to do so. Hosting this web site, holding webinars, sending out text messages and mass emails, traveling to auto plants: all of these things cost substantial amounts of money. If everyone makes a contribution, it will make an enormous difference in being able to build the scale of rank-and-file movement that we as workers need.”