Abstract
This commentary is based on a paper presented as part of a panel on “Working Class Self‐Activity in Transnational Contexts” at the 2013 North American Labor History Conference. It is largely based on the author's personal experiences with United Automobile Workers' Union (UAW) Local 879, an industrial union at the Ford Truck Assembly plant in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In this commentary, Rachleff traces the transformation of consciousness among white union members from racism and nationalism to new militancy, internationalism, and anti‐racism. He identifies several key turning points in the rank‐and‐file's experiences: the arrival of several hundred workers of color from other Ford plants; the Hormel strike of the mid‐1980s; Ford management's push for labor‐management cooperation in the early 1990s; and the North American Free Trade Agreement. At each of these points, local leadership, education, and activism helped workers engage new ideas, perspectives, and self‐awareness.
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