News You Can Use
Solidarity, the UAW's membership magazine, offers a lively mix of union news, feature stories, guest columns, fiction, and readers' letters. A winner of the International Labor Communications Association award for general excellence, Solidarity is published six times a year.
Education is a high priority in the UAW. The UAW Education Department, one of the largest in the American labor movement, offers a wide array of programs, ranging from training for local union leaders to the Summer Scholarship Program, a unique opportunity for UAW members and their families.
The Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center embodies the UAW's commitment to education. Each year, thousands of UAW members and their families participate in one of the many education programs and conferences at this beautiful 1,000-acre facility on the shores of Black Lake in northern Michigan. Black Lake provides UAW members opportunities not only to learn in the classroom, but to exchange ideas and experiences with union brothers and sisters from across the country.
The UAW Community Action Program
The UAW's efforts to improve the quality of life reach beyond the workplace and bargaining table to political and social action at the community, state, and national levels.
Over the years, the UAW, working with other unions and progressive allies, has played a vital role in passing such landmark legislation as Medicare and Medicaid, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the Voting Rights Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
At a time when powerful special interests, with their multi-million-dollar PACs and high-priced lobbyists, threaten to drown out the concerns of ordinary citizens, the UAW is a strong voice for policies and programs that make life better for all of us, not just the privileged few in our society. In Washington and state capitals, we're fighting for better schools for kids, secure health care and pensions for retirees, tougher workplace health and safety standards, clean air and water, stronger worker's comp and unemployment insurance laws, and fairer taxes.
The UAW's effectiveness in the political arena depends on the active involvement of UAW members in its Community Action Program -- or CAP, for short. Working together through CAP, active and retired UAW members have played major roles in winning progressive legislation and in electing pro-working family candidates at the local, state, and national levels.
