Our Candidates
The Call to Action slate includes members from auto, agricultural implement, heavy truck, and legal services. While we hail from a diverse set of industries, we are united around a commitment to a democratic, member-led UAWD, able to build rank-and-file power, transform our locals, and forge a broader class-struggle union.
Check out the values we're guided by and the program we'll implement.
Nolan Tabb
Candidate for Chairperson
UAW Local 281, John Deere
During Striketober of 2021, Nolan helped lead the rank and file strike of over 10,000 UAW members across 9 UAW-Deere Locals. After the fight for 1M1V, Nolan joined the UAWD Steering Committee and hit the ground running as delegate to win day-one strike-pay for the entire UAW. Nolan is now in his 2nd term on the Steering Committee and is serving as a Chair of the UAWD Organizing Committee. Nolan has proven leadership skills and commitment to Labor reform built by worker power.
“I'm proud to be running on the UAWD Call to Action slate along side forward-thinking members who are willing to acknowledge where we have achieved greatness, but also where we need to be better. I haven't invested so much time and energy into this fight for UAW reform just to hijack the system that was in place and further our own agenda. I don't want that system anymore, and I am fighting for something better!”
Navruz Baum
Candidate for Recording Secretary
UAW Local 2325, Paralegal
As a UAWD member, Navruz has campaigned for the Members United slate, organized UAWD phonebanks, and recruited dozens of new members. Navruz also organized his shop’s first ever strike, and as his local’s Recording Secretary has increased transparency and engagement by publishing minutes, streamlining membership communications, and starting a local newsletter. Navruz believes rank-and-file power is essential to building uncompromising institutions, and in the power of UAWD to push the UAW and the labor movement in that direction.
Dawnya Ferdinandsen
Candidate for member at large
UAW Local 14, General Motors
Dawnya has been a UAW member for 18 years. She served as Local 913’s first ever committeewoman since its founding in 1947, and has filed successful NLRB charges winning reinstatement for an illegally terminated worker. As Local 14’s Education Director, Dawnya started her local’s first ever podcast. Dawnya currently serves as VP of the Ohio Pride at Work chapter and is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Ben Smith
Candidate for Trustee
UAW Local 5287, Thomas Built Buses, Daimler Truck North America
Ben is a proud member of UAW Local 5287 and a welder at DTNA’s Thomas Built Buses complex in North Carolina. He was heavily involved in the contract campaign this year at DTNA — a struggle that secured unprecedented gains for workers as a result of a credible strike threat. After the campaign, Ben wrote the pamphlet “Lessons From the UAW Contract Struggle and Victory at DTNA."
Ben is also a member of the Southern Workers Assembly — an organization of rank-and-file workers that supports worker struggles. Ben has helped with various manufacturing organizing drives in the Carolinas, and previously worked for years in non-union manufacturing. The UAW and the broader labor movement can and must organize the South.
Judy Wraight
Candidate for Retiree Rep
UAW Local 600, Ford
Judy has been a UAW member since 1978 working on the assembly line and in skilled trades at the Ford Rouge Plant. Since then, she has put out explanatory VOTE NO leaflets on UAW contracts to describe their big failings. She was elected to the assembly plant and Tool and Die executive boards. In Local 600 membership meetings, she has organized for more transparency, fought back, and organized our members. She is currently on the UAWD Organizing Committee, actively supporting in-plant efforts to build rank-and-file movements.
Her life-long shop floor activism has been born out of her belief that the bosses and union leader sell-outs will always try to divert us into fighting false enemies, rather than fighting the corporations with a winning strategy of a united working class.
Mike Cannon
Candidate for Retiree Rep
UAW Local 282
Mike has had a life-long commitment to building a strong, membership-led UAW, and he has been a member of the UAWD Steering Committee since 2020. He has spent decades in the struggle to reform the UAW, and was a leader of the New Directions Movement in the 80s and 90s.
Mike started his time in the UAW at Local 282, joining a month after he was hired at Moog Automotive, Incorporated, St. Louis, Missouri, in August 1970. He held the positions of Shop Steward, Committeemen, and Shop Chairman for the Moog unit from 1973 until 1984 when he was appointed as an International Representative in UAW Region 5. He served in this capacity until his retirement in 2008. Mike also served a nine-year stint in the UAW Research Department during the 1990s.