Photographing for the UAW 1981 - 2003

UAW Photos 1981 - 2003

In 1979 just as the accident at 3 Mile Island unfolded my partner and I moved from Los Angeles to New York City.

I had done some work for the United Auto Workers during the negotiations and strike at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, and so within days of arriving in New York, Solidarity sent me to Connecticut to do a “day in the life” photo essay on a striker.

We lived in NYC until 1983, then moved to San Francisco where I continued doing assignment work for Solidarity, including the fight to keep the plants in South Gate and Van Nuys open.

Done th road from SF the GM Fremont plant was closing and then reopened as NUMI, and I documented that.

My career as a photographer started in Harlan County with the miners’ strike in 1974, and for the first 12 years I worked exclusively for union publications - mainly the UAW, ILGWU, ACTWU - as well as the campaigns for union democracy in the Steelworkers and Mineworkers (Harry Patrick’s campaign - not the original MFD).

In 1986 I traveled to the Philippines to document the elections that turned into “People

Power”, and the removal of the senior Marcos.

From 1986 to 1995 I traveled to a number of countries, always telling stories of the economy, culture, politics from the point of view of workers.

In 1995 I was given a contract by the California Department of Industrial Relations to photograph California workers. In 1999, when California’s Democratic governor was removed from office, the contract was terminated. Later that year I was offered a contract with the “Labor Management Partnership” at Kaiser. I left that job at the end of 2014.

The photos that follow here were all taken for either Solidarity, out of Detroit, or Local 259 in NYC. They represent only a small sample of the worksites, strikes, conferences and teaching I did while doing assignment work for the union.

It is a new day at the UAW, I would love to be a small part of it.

Working

Portraits

A Coffee and Donuts publication ©2023 Photographs and design: Robert Gumpert ragumpert@gmail.com - https://robertgumpert.com