The president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) is under federal investigation for allegedly retaliating against other UAW officials, according to a court filing published Monday.
Court-appointed monitor Neil Barofsky opened the investigation into Shawn Fain over allegations that he retaliated against certain union officials, including the UAW’s secretary-treasurer, for her alleged hesitation in approving certain expenses from Fain’s office, according to the filing. The UAW has been plagued by corruption scandals over the past decade, with the union’s former president, Dennis Williams, pleading guilty in 2020 to embezzling member dues from 2010 to 2019. (RELATED: This Union Is Plotting To Take Over The Auto Industry. Can It Be Done?)
The allegations against Fain were submitted by the UAW’s secretary-treasurer, Margaret Mock, after she was largely stripped of the responsibilities at the union that was not designated in the UAW’s constitution, according to the filing. Prior to that, she had been facing allegations of her own that she had engaged in misconduct while doing her duties.
The monitor alleges in its filing that the union has not fully cooperated with investigators for the past several months by not handing over the requested documents. Only 2,600 of the around 116,000 request documents had been handed over as of June 6, despite the request being sent three months prior.
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“The Monitor has attempted for months to garner the Union’s cooperation in gathering the information needed to conduct a full investigation, but the Union has effectively slow-rolled the Monitor’s access to requested documents,” the filing states.
The UAW struck a deal with the Justice Department in 2020 following the union scandals on a number of oversight measures, including the creation of an independent monitor that would investigate alleged fraud and exercise disciplinary power over the union.
The investigation comes amid a push by Fain to unionize more auto plants around the country, particularly in the southern U.S., which has traditionally been resistant to unionization. Workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, voted against unionization in May in a closely watched election.
The UAW did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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