This speech was delivered by Martaz Crutchfield, candidate for UAW delegate at Ford Dearborn Truck Plant, at the 2026 May Day Online Rally, organized by the WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International.
My name is Martaz Crutchfield and I came to speak at May Day to celebrate our International Day of Working Class Solidarity. Let me begin by endorsing the campaign of Will Lehman for President of the United Auto Workers union.
I grew up on the east side of Detroit, Michigan on 7 Mile and I-75 where after high school I decided to leave for the workforce to help my family secure means of living. After 10 years I came to work at Ford Motor Company where I joined my family’s fifth generation at working at the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
My grandfather worked at the Ford Rouge plant and he watched co-workers die in the streets during the mass strikes where they got their first auto workers contract, in 1941.
During my career I have served on a company safety committee and UAW shop committee. This week I am running for delegate to represent my co-workers in the Dearborn Truck Plant as a member of the “insurgent slate” at the upcoming UAW Constitutional Convention in June.
In my years on the job I have witnessed horrifying injuries and deaths. I’ve seen a woman lose her hand in a press machine. I’ve known a man that died on the job. And there are times where I can hardly move after work.
We just passed the one-year anniversary of the death of a man named Ronald Adams Sr. at the Stellantis Dundee plant. His wife and kids live down the street from where I grew up, and to this day they do not know why her husband was crushed to death at work.
Every day we hear about Donald Trump escalating war against Iran, and now he wants Ford and GM to retool factories for war. By way of increasing exploitation, the companies, the government and the unions are joining forces to push dictatorship on the shop floor and in the streets.
On this day our task is clear. We built a rank-and-file committee at DTP. We aim to take control of safety and our conditions away from the companies and the union bureaucracy, and into our own hands. We reject their wars.
Now in closing these remarks, permit me to urge every worker listening today to build a rank and file committee at your workplace. Start small with workers you trust. Support Will Lehman’s campaign and affiliate with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
To learn more, go to Will’s campaign website at willforuawpresident.org.