If you want to get anywhere in this world, it pays to get involved in politics. That’s what United Auto Workers President Bob King and former president of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged UAW members to do Sunday during an assembly of 1,500 active and retired UAW members for the UAW’s National Community Action Program. Not only should UAW members past and present become active in politics, King asserted, but they should seek political office.

Even presidents start small

At the Action Program conference, King pointed out that da Silva came from humble beginnings, yet managed to ascend to his country’s top level of government. He shined shoes as 12 years old, then began working in an auto plant through high school, spending more time there as opposed to graduating. By the year 2000, da Silva had captured Brazil’s presidency.

“It says to anybody in this room, if President Lula, an auto worker, can become president, why aren’t we out running more of our members to be city council members and congressmen and senators?” asked King.

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Winning contracts, improving worker representation

During his hour-long speech to the UAW faithful, da Silva referenced the efforts made during the late 1970s to improve working conditions and representation for auto workers. Better contracts were fought for, and better contracts were won.

It was a real shift toward the left, particularly in Brazil, where only two of the country’s 513 lawmakers were left-wing and sympathetic to the working class. Lula da Silva formed a leftist party under his own leadership and the landscape for auto workers in Brazil began to improve.

Politicians sympathetic to the problems auto workers face prove to be the most likely to enact change that works in their favor, and da Silva suggested that the UAW attempt to do the same in the U.S. The fight for workers’ rights is first and foremost a job for the workers, he exclaimed.

“(U.S. workers) should never say that ‘I’m not in politics, that I don’t like politics,’” da Silva said in Portuguese. “How many auto workers do you have in Congress, and how many lawmakers have been on a shop floor?”

Resistance from Nissan

According to da Silva, UAW and the labor movement have encountered organizational resistance from Japanese automaker Nissan. Nissan has denied the charge.

“We cannot allow that to happen. This is unimaginable,” he said. “The labor movement has an important role to play.”

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