UAW President Shawn Fain speaks before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 14, 2024, regarding the impact of workers’ work hours. Witness the loss.
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DETROIT — UAW President Sean Fein is under investigation by a federal court-appointed watchdog tasked with overseeing the union and stamping out corruption, court documents showed Monday.
Ombudsman Neil Barofsky is investigating whether Fein abused his power as union president. He also accused union leaders, including Fein, of obstructing the investigation and interfering with his access to information.
Such actions could violate a 2020 consent decree between the UAW and the Justice Department that averted a federal takeover of the union.
“For months, the ombudsman has attempted to secure the union’s cooperation in gathering the information needed to conduct a full investigation, but the union has effectively slowed the ombudsman’s access to requested documents,” court documents read.
More recently, the filing said, the ombudsman expanded the investigation to include additional allegations that Fein retaliated against a union vice president.
The ombudsman also opened an unrelated investigation into another unnamed UAW International Executive Board (IEB) member, the regional director, after receiving allegations of potential corruption, the document said.
The United Auto Workers did not immediately respond for comment.
UAW President Shawn Fain (right) and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock (left) at the Stellantis Ram 1500 plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on October 23, 2023, after the union called a strike at the plant. Leading parades outside.
Michael Weiland/CNBC
The union is in the midst of a national organizing drive among non-union automakers. The accusations came after Fein, who rose to international prominence last year after his union signed record contracts with the following companies. General Motors, Ford and star.
Court documents first reported by The Detroit News say Barofsky’s concerns largely began in February, when the ombudsman “began investigating current members of the IEB, including the president, secretary-treasurer and one of the union’s regional directors.” “.
The investigation stems from union leaders canceling all responsibilities assigned to Secretary and Treasurer Margaret Mock She was accused of misconduct in the performance of her financial oversight duties, which is not required by the Constitution.
In response, the filing said Mock “raised his own allegations against the union president, alleging, among other things, that she was false and improperly incited the removal of her authority in retaliation for her refusal or unwillingness to authorize certain expenditures.”
The document states that more than three months after the ombudsman’s initial document request, the union has provided “a small fraction (approximately 2,600 documents) of the current library of potentially relevant documents (approximately 116,000 documents), more than 80% of which are only available in June 6, 2024, a few days before the release of this report.
The ombudsman determined that “the union’s delay in providing relevant documents is impeding and interfering with its ability to obtain information necessary for its investigative work and, if unresolved, is a clear violation of the Consent Order,” the filing reads.
The consent order comes after a years-long corruption investigation into the union, involving graft, bribery and other allegations. That led to the convictions of union leaders and senior Fiat Chrysler officials, including two former union presidents.
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