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OP-ED: Better Angels and How They Travel

NNPA NEWSWIRE — We saw it in the early ‘30s when people were going hungry as this nation suffered through the agony of the Great Depression. We saw it in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, when Solidarity was the only thing we had to rely on as we stood up to the mega powerful auto bosses and demanded — through blood, sweat and tears — that they respect our workers and sit at the table to negotiate the first contracts.

Published

5 years ago

December 19, 2020

Ray Curry

It has been a year of terrible loss, of tremendous social upheaval and unimaginable grief. But here we are once again closing ranks, pushing on through it, helping one another. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)

Ray Curry, Secretary-Treasurer, UAW

What is the distance a good deed can travel? What does a warm bowl of soup mean? What does a warm bed mean? A new bike or a kind gesture from a stranger?

All these things are small in and of themselves, but the smallest gesture to someone in need can move all the markers. If you are cold and someone offers you a warm sleeping bag, is there a measure for that? If you are hungry, and someone gives you a warm meal, how far does that go? To anyone who has suffered, who has been in need or has seen their children go hungry, how far does a helping hand go? I would say it reaches all of us — it goes all the way to making the world a better place.

Taking Solidarity on the Road

As we go into the holiday season in the long and unimaginable year that has been 2020, I would like to reflect a bit on the small kindnesses we can show one another and, when you add them up, how far we have traveled. This holiday season I want to reflect on our collective journey. On our union’s long trek across time to make where we live a decent and better place. To reflect on a UAW that steps up when our brothers and sisters are suffering and in need.

We saw it in the early ‘30s when people were going hungry as this nation suffered through the agony of the Great Depression. We saw it in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, when Solidarity was the only thing we had to rely on as we stood up to the mega powerful auto bosses and demanded — through blood, sweat and tears — that they respect our workers and sit at the table to negotiate the first contracts.

We saw it in the ‘50s and ‘60s as our communities were torn apart by racial inequality and my UAW sisters and brothers stood strong, stood courageous with only the idea of what was right on their side. And we marched before the world.

We saw it through the dynamic ‘70’s and well into the ‘80’s when the UAW led the way in following in our fallen leader, Walter Reuther’s footsteps, and soldiering on to build and solidify America’s middle class, while building prosperity and mobility and a better way of life for so many.

When our courageous brothers and sisters stood together in 1990 alongside Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years of his life in prison fighting to end apartheid in South Africa. Upon his release, he came almost immediately to Detroit to thank our union members in person for taking a real role in his human rights struggle for justice and telling those assembled at Local 600, “Sisters and brothers, friends and comrades, the man who is speaking is not a stranger here. The man who is speaking is a member of the UAW. I am your flesh and blood.”

And our values held fast as we stood by one another in a changing world with automation and globalization and anti-union politics challenging our gains, making them harder to come by, but not putting a dent in our determination, in our Solidarity or in our support for one another and for all of America’s workers.

Brothers and Sisters, look at us in the early 2000s, moving forward together to save the auto industry by making enormous sacrifices for the greater good. And here we are again just last year, mounting the biggest auto strike of the last 50 years, with UAW men and women marching side by side across this nation — 49,000+ — in heat, rain, sleet, and snow to once again tell an auto boss, “NO! We will take no more concessions as you make billions on the backs of the products we build.”

And, in all these instances, we were on the good road. In all these instances we made the world a little bit better place. We reached out to one another, we took care of one another and we marched in Solidarity for every working man and woman in this country. As we have always done. As we will always do. It is in our DNA.

Going the distance

So, here we are in 2020 and going through the teeth of a virus that has not begun to let go, that has taken so many from us, that affects the way we work, live and learn. It has been a year of terrible loss, of tremendous social upheaval and unimaginable grief. But here we are once again closing ranks, pushing on through it, helping one another.

Our UAW family was, as always, among the first to step up when our nation was in need. Our sisters and brothers volunteered to go back into the plants to make the critical life-saving Personal Protective Equipment needed to fight this pandemic; we started food banks; community support projects; served on the front lines of this crisis in health care facilities and public safety; and got to work in our living rooms and kitchens making masks. And once again, we stood together and with the strength of our Solidarity, told the companies that the safety of our members comes first as we looked to get our nation back to work last spring.

This holiday I want to recognize every hard-working woman and man in this country, especially our UAW family and fellow Labor Union families, and remind us all of how far we have come and what we have achieved. I am proud to say that we are all on this road together and I cannot imagine better traveling companions.

Wishing each and every one of us a safe and happy holiday.

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Ray Curry

President, UAW

Ray Curry was elected President of the UAW on June 28, 2021 by the International Executive Board upon the retirement of UAW President Rory L. Gamble. Curry officially assumed the office of president on July 1, 2021 and will serve out the remainder of the term until June 2022. Elected UAW Secretary-Treasurer at the 37th Constitutional Convention in June 2018, Curry was instrumental in implementation of broad financial ethics reforms and oversight as part of the UAW’s Ethics Reforms Initiative.

Curry was elected Director of UAW Region 8 in June 2014 at the 36th UAW Constitutional Convention in Detroit after having served four years as the region’s assistant director.

As Region 8 director, Curry was instrumental in securing new labor agreements with various parts suppliers. In July 2015, under his leadership, the region successfully organized the first gaming bargaining unit of Region 8 as part of a coalition of four other unions to represent the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore, Maryland. In October 2017, the combined coalition reached its first individual collective bargaining agreements. UAW Local 17 represents the table dealers. Under Curry’s leadership, the region also won an election for representation at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in June 2018, bringing 1,250 new members into the union.

A North Carolina native and military veteran, Curry served three years on active duty in the U.S. Army and five years in the U.S. Army Reserve.

He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration / Finance. He holds a Master of Business Administration, MBA, degree from the University of Alabama.

Curry joined the UAW in July 1992, when he was hired as a truck assembler at Freightliner Trucks in Mount Holly, North Carolina, (now Daimler Trucks, NA) and later became a quality assurance inspector. He remained in that position until 2004. He served on the local’s civil rights committee and as a delegate for the area A. Philip Randolph Chapter. From 1998 to 2004, UAW Local 5285 members elected him to serve in numerous leadership positions, including as UAW Constitutional Convention delegate, chairman of the trustees, financial secretary-treasurer and alternate committeeperson. He also served as chairman of the UAW North Carolina State Political Action Committee, executive board vice president of the North Carolina AFL-CIO and as a UAW member organizer on the 2003 and 2004 Freightliner organizing drives in Cleveland, Gastonia and High Point, North Carolina.

In October 2004, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger appointed him as an International representative assigned to Region 8. His assignment as a servicing representative included aerospace, automotive (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors facilities), heavy truck, and numerous automotive supplier locations in Alabama and Tennessee. He was responsible for collective bargaining, arbitration, organizing, political action and other bargaining-unit assignments. In June 2010, he was appointed Region 8 assistant director by then–Region 8 Director Gary Casteel.

Curry was elected as a 2012 Democratic National Convention alternate delegate on behalf of the state of Tennessee and later became a full voting delegate at the convention.

He is the 2017 recipient of the A. Philip Randolph Leon Lynch Lifetime Achievement Award, 2017 recipient of the Tennessee State AFL-CIO Presidential Award, the 2018 PR Latta Rank and File Award from the North Carolina AFL-CIO, as well as the 2019 National Newspaper Press Association’s National Leadership Award.

A longtime grassroots activist, Curry is a member of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, a Silver Life member of the NAACP, and member of the national NAACP Board of Directors. He is also an active member of numerous community and social organizations including but not limited to the Michigan State Democratic Party, American Legion Post 177 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Unique Masonic Lodge #85, Charlotte Consistory #35, and Rameses Temple #51 in Charlotte, North Carolina.