United Auto Employees President Shawn Fain testifies concerning the toll of working hours on laborers before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee within the Dirksen Senate Office Constructing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 14, 2024.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
DETROIT — United Auto Employees President Shawn Fain is under investigation by a federal court-appointed watchdog who’s tasked with monitoring the union and eliminating corruption, in response to a Monday court filing.
The monitor, Neil Barofsky, is investigating whether Fain abused his power as union president. He also accuses union leaders, including Fain, of obstructing the investigation and interfering together with his access to information.
Such actions could potentially violate a 2020 consent decree between the UAW and the U.S. Department of Justice that avoided a federal takeover of the union.
“The Monitor has attempted for months to garner the Union’s cooperation in gathering the data needed to conduct a full investigation, however the Union has effectively slow-rolled the Monitor’s access to requested documents,” the court filing reads.
More recently, the filing says the monitor expanded the investigation to incorporate additional allegations of retaliation by Fain against considered one of the union’s vice presidents.
The monitor also opened an unrelated investigation into one other unnamed UAW International Executive Board, or IEB, member, a regional director, after receiving allegations of potential embezzlement, in response to the filing.
United Auto Employees President Shawn Fain (right) and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock (left) lead a march outside Stellantis’ Ram 1500 plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, after the union called a strike on the plant on Oct. 23, 2023.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
Without specifically addressing any issues within the filing, Fain released a press release Monday night: “Taking our union in a latest direction means sometimes you’ve gotten to rock the boat, and that upsets some individuals who wish to keep the established order, but our membership expects higher and deserves higher than the old business as usual.
“We encourage the Monitor to research whatever claims are delivered to their office, because we all know what they’ll find: a UAW leadership committed to serving the membership, and running a democratic union. We’re staying focused on winning record contracts, growing our union, and fighting for economic and social justice on and off the job.”
The union is in the midst of a national organizing drive of nonunion automakers. The accusations follow Fain’s rise to international prominence after the union under his leadership scored record-setting contracts last yr with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
The court filing, which was first reported by The Detroit News, says Barofsky’s concerns largely began in February, after the monitor “began investigating current members of the IEB—including the President, Secretary-Treasurer, and considered one of the Union’s Regional Directors.”
The probe stems from union leaders removing all responsibilities assigned to Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock that weren’t constitutionally required amid allegations she had engaged in misconduct while carrying out her financial oversight responsibilities.
In response, the filing says Mock “lodged allegations of her own against the Union’s President that, amongst other things, the costs against her were false, and that the removal of her authority was improperly instigated in retaliation for her refusal or reluctance to authorize certain expenditures.”
The filing states greater than three months after the monitor’s initial document request, the union has produced “a really small portion (roughly 2,600 documents) of the present potentially relevant pool of roughly 116,000—and with greater than 80% of those documents only produced on June 6, 2024, days before the issuance of this report.”
The monitor believes the “union’s delay of relevant documents is obstructing and interfering together with his access to information needed for his investigative work, and, if left unaddressed, is an apparent violation of the Consent Decree,” the filing reads.
The consent decree followed a yearslong corruption probe into the union involving embezzlement, bribery and other charges. It resulted in several convictions of union leaders and Fiat Chrysler executives, including two past union presidents.
