By Nora Eckert
DETROIT, June 25 (Reuters) - The federally appointed watchdog overseeing the United Auto Workers union found that its president, Shawn Fain, retaliated against a top officer and improperly used his authority, including in ways that would benefit his fiancée and her sister.
New York attorney Neil Barofsky, the monitor overseeing UAW activities, said in a report released on Thursday that Fain retaliated against a union official, Rich Boyer, after Boyer pushed back against some of Fain’s actions.
The monitor said that, although some of the evidence could warrant disciplinary action, he has deferred a decision pending further review. The report comes just ahead of a UAW leadership election, in which Fain is campaigning for a second four-year term.
Fain said in a statement that Barofsky's reports were politically motivated, citing what he said was a heated and highly personal disagreement with the monitor in 2024 regarding a call by the union’s executive board for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Now, more than two years after becoming aware of Vice President Boyer's allegations, and on the eve of our election, Mr. Barofsky has chosen to publicly release a politically charged and false report about me. The most reasonable conclusion is that he is playing political games and abusing his power,” Fain wrote in the statement, which was dated on Tuesday and released on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Jenner & Block LLP, the law firm that employs Barofsky, said he has "acted with the highest levels of professionalism, integrity, and respect in his roles in public service, private practice, and as a DOJ-appointed monitor.”
Art Wheaton, a labor studies professor at Cornell University, said that although the federal watchdog can take severe disciplinary action, some of which could affect Fain’s ability to run for office, the potential for any drastic or criminal punishment in the case does not appear likely to rise to that level.
Fain rose to prominence in 2023 after leading strikes against General Motors, Ford Motor and Jeep maker Stellantis, although accusations by the monitor have bruised his reputation among some UAW members. Boyer is one of several candidates running against Fain.
Executives at the Detroit carmakers would be closely watching the UAW election, as Fain proved to be the union’s most combative chief in decades and won historic contract gains after the 2023 strikes.
The UAW has been under federal oversight since a 2020 settlement between the UAW and the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve a union corruption scandal. The monitor’s office issues periodic reports about the union’s inner workings.
The latest report stated that Fain pushed for bonuses for non-union employees at a Stellantis training center, which would have benefited his fiancée. It additionally states that Fain pushed Stellantis and union leaders to intervene in a workers' compensation matter for his fiancée's sister after she was injured working at a Stellantis plant.
Fain and Boyer also clashed over other issues relating to Boyer's management of the Stellantis department and its personnel.
The report states that, when Boyer pushed back on some of these actions, Fain retaliated against him by stripping him of certain duties. The union had reassigned the duties back to Boyer following a previous report from the monitor.
(Reporting by Nora Eckert in Detroit; Editing by Mike Colias and Edmund Klamann)
