Daniel Weed
Template:TOCnestleft Daniel Weed is a Michigan activist.
Supporting UAW
Since the strike of roughly 48,000 UAW-represented General Motors workers began on Sept. 16, groups of Wayne State students have been organizing in their free time between classes to donate supplies, join picket lines and offer support in whatever ways they can.
Wayne State YDSA began in the summer of 2019, according to Kylee Weiss and Daniel Weed, two student members of YDSA.
“We work with local chapters but we also want to advocate for the needs that are most pressing for students here at Wayne,” Weiss said. “Because GM has a history of screwing over workers, we felt it was important to support worker control of decisions over the company.”
YDSA sees the ongoing GM strike as an opportunity, not just to promote their own politics, but to help bolster an ailing labor movement in the United States that has been on the decline over the past several decades, Weed and Weiss said.
“I think this strike occurs at a time when labor is at a relatively low point in its general power, and its power in the auto industry is less than it has been historically,” Marick Masters, the director of labor studies and a professor of business at WSU, said.
Harrison Cole, a YDSA member and criminal justice major at WSU, comes from several generations of UAW members who have worked at various GM plants and said he brings canned food to UAW union halls to help support workers and their families.[1]