Shawn Fain, CNN Business’ labor leader of the year, plans to keep automakers sweating

The longest US auto strike this century is over after a pretty clear win for the United Auto Workers union at all three unionized automakers. But don’t think the union is moving to repair relations between labor and management the way it has after past strikes.

The longest US auto strike this century is over after a pretty clear win for the United Auto Workers union at all three unionized automakers. But don’t think the union is moving to repair relations between labor and management the way it has after past strikes. The union and the automakers typically talked a good game about cooperation when there isn’t a strike going on. “I don’t like what I’ve seen in my work career with the UAW leadership, where they were too damn close to the companies,” UAW President Shawn Fain told CNN earlier this month. But when asked if things work better for his members when there’s a less contentious or more contentious relationship between the UAW and the Big Three, Fain responded, “We just negotiated the most successful contracts in our history,” he said. “For the last 30 years that I’ve been a member, we went backwards. So I like to let the body of work speak for itself.” The success of those contracts is the reason that Shawn Fain is CNN Business’ labor leader of the year. CNN Business has been naming a “CEO of the year” for many years now, but this year’s success of unions winning significant wage increases, often by waging high-profile strikes, pointed to the need for a labor leader of the year as well.