United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain testifies about the cost of workers' hours before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2024.
Chip Somodevilla | fake images
DETROIT – United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain is under investigation by a federal court-appointed watchdog tasked with monitoring the union and rooting out corruption, according to a court filing Monday.
The observer, Neil Barofsky, is investigating whether Fain abused his power as union president. He also accuses union officials, including Fain, of obstructing the investigation and interfering 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 prevented a federal takeover of the union.
“The Monitor has attempted for months to secure the Union's cooperation to gather the information necessary to conduct a full investigation, but the Union has effectively slowed the Monitor's access to the requested documents,” the court filing reads.
More recently, the document says the monitor expanded the investigation to include additional allegations of retaliation by Fain against one of the union's vice presidents.
The monitor also opened an unrelated investigation into another unnamed member of the UAW International Executive Board, or IEB, a regional director, after receiving allegations of possible embezzlement of funds, according to the filing.
The UAW did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain (right) and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock (left) lead a march outside the Stellantis Ram 1500 plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, after the union called a strike at the plant on October 23, 2023.
Michael Wayland/CNBC
The union is in the midst of a national organizing campaign by non-union automakers. The allegations follow Fain's rise to international prominence after the union under his leadership won record contracts last year with General Motors, Ford engine 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 IEB members, including the president, the secretary-treasurer and one of the regional directors of the Union”.
The investigation stems from union leaders eliminating all responsibilities assigned to Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock that were not constitutionally required amid allegations that she had engaged in misconduct while carrying out her financial oversight responsibilities.
In response, the document says that Mock “made his own accusations against the President of the Union that, among other things, the charges against him were false and that the removal of his authority was improperly instigated in retaliation for his refusal or reluctance to authorize certain expenses.”
The filing states that more than three months after the monitor's initial request for documents, the union has produced “a very small portion (approximately 2,600 documents) of the current potentially relevant set of approximately 116,000, and more than 80% of those “Documents were only produced on June 6, 2024, days before the issuance of this report.”
The monitor believes that “the union's delay in providing relevant documents is obstructing and interfering with its access to information necessary for its investigative work and, if not addressed, is an apparent violation of the Consent Decree,” it reads. in the document.
The consent decree followed a year-long corruption investigation at the union that involved embezzlement, bribery and other charges. The result was several convictions of union leaders and Fiat Chrysler executives, including two former union presidents.
