My name is Will Lehman. I work at Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, and I will be running for president of the United Auto Workers in the 2026 elections. The purpose of this campaign is to spearhead a fundamental change in the organization, program, and strategy of the UAW:
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2026 Campaign Statement
Why I’m running for UAW President in 2026
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Abolish the Bureaucracy
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End Corporate Collaboration
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International Solidarity
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Defend Democratic Rights
First: To end the dictatorship of the Solidarity House bureaucracy over the union, purge the UAW of hundreds of parasitic union bureaucrats, promote the creation of a network of rank and file committees, and transfer power and decision making from the pro-corporate union apparatus to workers on the shop floor.
Second: To end the collaboration of the UAW with the corporations and re-establish the needs of the rank and file, not corporate profitability, as the purpose of the union. Forty-five years of pro-corporate policies must be replaced with a strategy of class struggle. Wages must be raised for all workers — including autoworkers, health care workers, academic workers and others in the UAW — to fully recover the losses caused by past concessions and raging inflation. Retirees must be assured of their economic security.
The UAW must adopt a zero-layoff policy and demand job security for all workers. Health insurance that covers all medical needs for workers must be provided at the company's expense. Job safety must be enforced by establishing rank and file control over working conditions and production standards. The historic demand for a 30-hour week, with no loss of pay, must be reasserted. Overtime must be voluntary, and compensated with triple the normal wage rate.
Third: To repudiate the reactionary chauvinism of the UAW bureaucracy. Workers have nothing to gain from a trade war, which amounts to a struggle among capitalists for control of markets and a greater share of profits gained through the exploitation of the working class. What we need is an international strategy based on the unified struggle of American, Canadian, and Mexican workers against transnational corporations. The union must oppose the vicious persecution of immigrant workers, who are our class brothers and sisters. Members of this union must understand that without the concentrated, multiethnic immigrant and first‑generation workforce in the auto industry — and their traditions of solidarity and resistance — the industrial confrontations of the mid‑1930s that birthed the UAW would not have taken the same mass, militant form, nor achieved such rapid victories.
Fourth: To mobilize the full and potential industrial and economic power of the union membership to defend democratic rights and oppose war.
These are not normal times
This is not a normal election, because these are not normal times. Across the country, workers in the UAW and throughout industry face a wave of mass layoffs driven by automation, speedup, and unsafe conditions. At the same time, the financial oligarchy is responding to growing anger and resistance with violence, war, attacks on basic democratic rights and the effort to impose a police-state dictatorship.
ICE agents roam our cities with a license to kill. In Illinois, Renée Good, a mother of three, and union brother Alex Pretti have been murdered. Trump, the frontman for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires, is determined to set up an American version of Hitler's Third Reich.
We as workers must collectively organize in defense of our social and democratic rights — including the right to a decent standard of living, secure jobs, and safe working conditions. Workers are being maimed and killed on the job as corporations drive speedup, cut safety, and treat human life as disposable. The death of Ronald Adams Sr., crushed while performing maintenance work at a Stellantis engine plant, stands as a brutal indictment of a system that sacrifices workers for profit.
However, we cannot defend our lives and livelihoods while we are bound hand and foot by a union apparatus that works against us at every turn.
The UAW Is a Union in Name Only
As it is presently constituted, the UAW is a union in name only. It functions to isolate us, discipline us, and protect the interests of a privileged bureaucracy that is in bed with the companies and the government.
Consider some facts:
The UAW holds $1.1 billion in assets. According to the union's most recent financial disclosure, the International employs around 1,000 people. Of those, nearly 470 take home over $100,000 a year. UAW President Shawn Fain is paid $270,000. The Secretary-Treasurer, Margaret Mock, makes $247,000. The three vice presidents average $235,000 each. And the nine regional directors average $220,000.
Shawn Fain — $270,000/yr
These officials sit in the top 5 percent of income earners in the United States. They are not subject to the same economic shocks we face. A regional director making $220,000 doesn't have to worry about how to pay rent, buy groceries, or whether their job might be eliminated tomorrow.
Then there are the 500 to 600 “International Representatives” — the enforcement arm of Solidarity House. They make between $140,000 and $160,000 a year and function as high-paid industrial police. They enforce the decisions of the top leadership and work to suppress rank-and-file dissent.
In total, these representatives consume $90 to $100 million in payroll every year. That's what the apparatus is defending — not us, not our jobs, not our safety, but its own income stream.
That income is drawn from the union's $1.1 billion war chest. Nearly $800 million is invested in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds — speculating on Wall Street while workers live paycheck to paycheck. Another $150 million is tied up in treasury securities. And another $150 million is in real estate, including Solidarity House and luxury resort properties.
Even the strike fund is run as an investment scheme. It generates interest for the bureaucracy, not resources for workers to fight back.
This is a business model. And the workers are not the beneficiaries.
By the numbers
$0B
Total UAW Assets
Stocks, bonds, real estate, treasury securities
$0M
On Wall Street
Speculating in stocks, bonds & mutual funds
$0M
Bureaucrat Payroll
$90–100M annually for ~1,000 staff
Where the Money Goes
Wall Street Investments$800M
Treasury Securities$150M
Real Estate & Properties$150M
The 2022 Election and the Fraud of “Reform”
In 2022, I ran for UAW president to give a voice to the rank and file. What happened in that election was a blatant suppression of democratic rights. Over 90 percent of UAW members didn't vote — because the leadership did everything it could to keep us uninformed and out of the process.
0%
of UAW members didn't vote
Shawn Fain came to power promising “reform.” But what have we gotten? Layoffs. Concessions. The “stand-up strike” that left most workers on the job. And now, the revelation of more corruption.
The truth is, this bureaucracy can't be reformed. It must be abolished. The union parasites who collaborate with management and the state must be removed, and the resources of the union must be taken out of their hands and placed under the democratic control of the rank and file.
What This Campaign Is About
That's what this campaign is about. Not about getting me into some cushy office at Solidarity House — I'm not going to be moving there. I will stay on the shop floor. The aim of this campaign is not to replace one official with another, but to abolish the bureaucracy and transfer power to the rank-and-file.
We as workers have enormous power. Without us, nothing moves. The machines don't run. The trucks don't ship. The profits don't flow.
But we have to use that power consciously. And that means getting organized.
This campaign will fight to spearhead the building of rank-and-file committees in every plant, warehouse, and workplace — independent, democratic organizations of workers that take decision-making power into our own hands. These committees will coordinate action, link up across job sites and industries, and prepare the basis for a real counteroffensive of the working class.
A Socialist and an Internationalist
I am running as a socialist and an internationalist. Socialism means a society run by the working class, not the billionaires, who profit off our exploitation. We must reject every attempt to divide us — by race, nationality, or ethnicity — and fight to unite workers across borders in a common struggle, for we all have the same interests and the same enemies.
I Cannot Fight This War Alone
If we want to change anything, we have to fight. But I cannot fight this war alone. Everything will be done to prevent a rank-and-file worker like me from even being nominated.
I'm calling on you — every member of the UAW — to get involved. Help build a campaign that speaks not for the rich, not the politicians, not the union bosses, but for the working class. Organize meetings. Talk to your coworkers. Form rank-and-file committees. Demand that your local hold a well-publicized meeting at which delegates to the UAW Constitutional Convention will be selected democratically. In particular, I am asking you to elect delegates, or become a delegate yourself, to the UAW Constitutional Convention for your local to ensure that I am nominated as a candidate.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, whose great declaration proclaimed that “All men are created equal” and entitled to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
This principle is under attack.
As the great Tom Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men's souls.” The time has come to revive our revolutionary ideals.
Join the Fight
Get involved with the campaign. Help build rank-and-file power in every workplace.
