Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and a cast of high-profile labor leaders joined United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and hundreds of striking autoworkers and supporters for a rally on Chicago’s far Southeast Side on Saturday. Chicago’s critical role in the labor movement — past and present — the importance of labor solidarity and what the UAW’s struggle against the Big Three automakers means for the entire working class, took center stage.

“Is this a union town or what?” Johnson enthusiastically asked the crowd, to cheers. ​“The city of Chicago, this country, this world doesn’t move without workers. Today, we send a very clear message to the rest of the world that the power of the workers will be heard and felt one way or the other. You’re gonna listen to us at the negotiating table, on the streets, at the ballot box and we have made it very clear, if you don’t hear us, we’ll get a contract, but we’ll also send someone to the fifth floor who’s a part of the labor movement.”

The UAW’s ​“Stand-Up Strike” began in mid-September when the union’s contract with the Big Three expired. As the union employed its strategy of rolling out surprise strikes at plants across the country almost every week, UAW Local 551 workers at a Ford assembly plant, where about 5,000 are employed, were called to walk off the job at the end of September. It’s the oldest continually operating facility for Ford, where they produce the Explorer, police interceptors and the Lincoln Aviator. The rally was held at the Local 551 union hall.

The Ford assembly plant is one of three Chicago-area plants currently striking, including a General Motors distribution plant in suburban Bolingbrook and a Stellantis plant in nearby Naperville. Spirits were high and the crowd’s fervor potent as union leaders from Local 551 and allies from other unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA joined Johnson and Fain with rousing speeches. 

At the beginning of the rally, a sea of red-clad autoworkers surged into the union hall, shouting and waving plastic hand clappers as the California-based rock group The BellRays hyped up the crowd. Lead singer Lisa Kekaula sang refrains of ​“We’ve got the power!” and ​“You’ve got the power!” against guitarist Bob Vennum’s raucous playing. Later on, Chicago-based punk rock band Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath led the crowd in singing a rendition of the classic labor song by Pete Seeger, ​“Which Side Are You On?”

Just outside the union hall and even farther down the road on Torrence Avenue, more striking autoworkers could be found with signs and just as much enthusiasm.

Chants of ​“UAW! UAW!” punctuated the afternoon.

Fain’s appearance in Chicago comes amid key wins in the union’s continued bargaining with and strike against the Big Three auto manufacturers—Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Just a day earlier, Fain announced that GM, in a landmark win for the union and the just transition in auto manufacturing, had agreed in writing to place its electric vehicle battery plants under the UAW’s master national contract. Labor Notes editor Luis Feliz Leon’s groundbreaking investigation for In These Times, ​“Will the Clean Energy Auto Economy Be Built on Factory Floors Riddled With Toxic Chemicals and Safety Hazards?” gives insight into the importance of the win by detailing the harrowing conditions at the Ultium Cells plant in Ohio that is a joint venture between GM and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution.

Fain was the last speaker of the day and when he came to the podium, he placed several of the UAW’s current demands and the ability for the UAW to strike with the force that it is in the context of Chicago’s transformative union movements and in relation to its ingenuity.

“You know, the city of Chicago holds a special place in the labor movement, past and present,” Fain said. He spoke about the Haymarket Affair and how the demand for an eight-hour day, at the time, was considered by many as untenable and unrealistic. Fain and the UAW are currently demanding a 32-hour workweek for autoworkers.

“We cannot ever come to Chicago and talk about labor without looking at the relevance and recognizing the Haymarket martyrs — 137 years ago, thousands of workers in this city were on strike just like our UAW members today,” Fain said. ​“They came under violent attack as so many workers in this country have faced. Several of their leaders made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives to the cause of labor. We shouldn’t forget what those Haymarket martyrs were fighting for. The eight-hour day. They were fighting for their lives, they were fighting for their time. They were cut down in pursuit of a radical idea, that our lives belong to us, that our time belongs to us. Even working-class people deserve a quality of life that doesn’t revolve around work.”