Once again, I’m confused by United Auto Workers (UAW) communications. With the strike against three automakers in effect, a new video, posted on the website home page, is worth analyzing for audience and communication objectives.

As I wrote about last month, UAW president Shawn Fain is a prominent figure in these union messages. He’s on screen during much of the video, titled “What Is the Stand Up Strike?” and narrates for the entire four minutes, with dramatic background music throughout.

The actors and audience are unclear. Fain starts, “Everything working people have ever won, we’ve won together.” Who’s “we”? What “working people”? All working people? If so, that’s a stretch. He continues, “Today, America’s autoworkers are in the fight of our lives.” By using “our,” he includes himself. In the next few sentences, with accompanying images, he lists autoworkers’ broad goals around pay, benefits, and job security. But he transitions, loosely: “Winning these demands will take all of us. It will take a return to our roots.”

In the next segment, which lasts about one minute, Fain describes the UAW’s history. We see black and white images dating back to 1936, when Fain says the union confronted “company thugs, spies, and antiunion laws.” Promoting the value of the UAW—and unions, in general—this part seems to address a broader audience. Similarly, for about another minute, Fain then explains the union’s strategy of striking “The Big Three,” presenting the approach as an innovative model.

Not until 3:17 in the 4-minute video does Fain address autoworkers directly. He says, “UAW family, be ready,” and then encourages people to strike if their “local” is called up, stand on the picket line, and participate in other organizing activities. Business communication students will recognize the anaphora towards the end: “Stand up for ourselves and the working class. Let’s stand up for future generations. Let’s stand up for economic and social justice. Let’s stand up and, once again, make history together.”

My skepticism is about autoworkers’ interest in those ideals. Do people strike, which causes at least short-term economic loss, to make history? For future generations? This is why I miss the voice of the autoworker. How do people describe their struggles? What do they see as unfair? What would they like to see changed? Where’s the peer-to-peer influence if workers are the intended audience?

Here’s the video YouTube description, with another dose of anaphora:

The Stand Up Strike is our generation’s answer to the movement that built our union, the Sit-Down Strikes of 1937. Then as now, we face massive inequality across our society. Then as now, our industry is rapidly changing and workers are being left behind. Then as now, our labor movement is redefining itself. This is a strike that grows over time, giving our national negotiators maximum leverage and maximum flexibility to win a record contract.