UAW President Shawn Fain faces federal court investigation

In a statement to the Washington Post on Monday evening, Fain said the union encourages the Observer to “investigate any allegations brought to their office because we know what they will find: a UAW leadership that is committed to serving its members and running a democratic union.”

Fain, the union’s first democratically elected president, has thrust the UAW into the national spotlight over the past year with his bold program to rebuild the American labor movement and reshape the union’s image, which had been tarnished by past corruption scandals.

As part of a 2021 settlement, Barofsky was appointed federal commissioner for the union after the Justice Department launched a corruption investigation that led to the conviction of former union leaders. Fain was elected following that investigation.

Barofsky’s investigation concerns allegations by UAW Treasurer Margaret Mock that she faced retaliation for “failing to approve or being reluctant to approve certain expenditures for Fain’s office.” Barofsky told the court he is also investigating Mock’s actions.

The union’s international board voted in February to remove Mock from all field assignments. The union had accused her of “misconduct in the performance of her financial oversight duties,” the report said.

Mock did not immediately respond to attempts to contact him.

The report also said Barofsky has launched an investigation into allegations made by a vice president overseeing union affairs at Jeep maker Stellantis who claimed the UAW stripped him of his position in retaliation for his “refusal to engage in financial misconduct to benefit others.”

According to court documents, Fain issued a memo at the time explaining that the action was taken due to the vice president’s “dereliction of duty” regarding union bargaining issues.

“As we move our union in a new direction, sometimes we have to cause disruption. That angers some people who want to maintain the status quo. But our members expect and deserve more than the old ‘business as usual,'” Fain said in his statement Monday evening.

Last fall, after strikes against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the union won record wage increases and other concessions from the Detroit automakers. Then in April, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to join the UAW, the first auto plant in the South to hold a successful union election since the 1940s. A subsequent election at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, ended in defeat last month, though the union is contesting the outcome at the National Labor Relations Board.