Great news! For years, UAW members across the West Coast have been pushing for the formation of a West Coast UAW Region as an important step towards reforming our broader UAW International Union, and we’ve finally won. On Tuesday, the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) responded to this demand with an announcement that they have voted to form a new region of the UAW based in the West Coast. This vote comes in the wake of the historic victory by 17,000 Student Researchers at UC and 1,500 Research Scientists & Engineers at the University of Washington to form new UAW unions.
This decision marks a historic moment in UAW 5810’s effort to democratize, strengthen, and grow the labor movement in California. With this new region, we can continue and expand our efforts to support more workers to form unions, to win progressive electoral reforms across California and neighboring states, and to launch and win ambitious contract campaigns across industries in California. Having our own region means that UAW 5810 members have a major voice in shaping the direction and priorities of our union.
Our Local was once part of the 17-state Region 5, whose massive size enabled corruption to go undetected by members. UAW 5810 has repeatedly made calls for smaller regions alongside the vast majority of West Coast Locals across sectors (check out letters from January 2020, February 2020, and earlier this month).
The new West Coast Region will be officially formed at the July 2022 Constitutional Convention, and the election for the region’s director will occur shortly thereafter through the new direct election system alongside other IEB positions.
In solidarity,
UAW 5810 Executive Board
Neal Sweeney, President, UC Santa Cruz
Sarah M. Arveson, Vice President, UC Berkeley
Diogo Lourenço, Financial Secretary, UC Berkeley
Alex Blacutt, Recording Secretary, UC Riverside
Savannah Bergquist, Trustee, UC Berkeley
Maike Roth, Trustee, UC San Francisco
Charisse Winston, Sergeant At Arms, UC San Diego
Stephany Chacon, Postdoc Member At Large, Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Gerard Ariño-Estrada, Guide, UC Davis