The court-appointed monitor of the United Auto Workers has issued another scathing criticism of the union’s president, Shawn Fain, saying Fain for personal reasons unfairly retaliated against another one of the union’s vice presidents.
In a report filed on Thursday, June 25, the monitor says Fain, based on faulty pretenses, stripped Rich Boyer of oversight of the union’s Stellantis Department. The monitor concluded that none of the stated reasons offered by Fain justified the removal of Boyer’s responsibilities and that, instead, Fain’s actions fit into a recurring pattern of retaliation against perceived union foes.
All told, the monitor said, none of Fain’s accusations is verifiable or amount to dereliction of duty by Boyer and may in fact be the result of Fain’s and his team’s shortcomings as contract negotiators.
Fain, for his part, says it’s the monitor who is being retaliatory. In a statement issued Thursday morning, Fain accused Neil Barofsky, the New York-based lawyer watchdogging the union for the federal government, of “playing political games and abusing his power.”
Last December, Barofsky premptively restored Boyer’s duties as part of a fiery report in which Barofsky wrote that he would soon issue his conclusions on the dispute, which has simmered for more than two years.
Barofsky has been overseeing the union since 2021. A judge in U.S. District Court in Detroit assigned him to watch for possible corruption and wrongdoing in the UAW as a part of a settlement with the federal government after an ugly embezzlement scandal landed several former leaders in prison.
Since taking the reins as the monitor, Barofsky has issued about two updates per year. Recently, he has issued a series of reports accusing Fain of retaliating against UAW leaders with whom he disagrees. The monitor has said Fain has fostered a culture of fear and retribution at the top ranks and warned that without a change in behavior, the monitorship may extend beyond its agreed-upon six-year timeline.
According to the agreement that put the monitor in place, Barofsky has the power to take action against the union if he uncovers criminal activity or activity that violates the UAW constitution. He can either negotiate with the union to address his concerns or he may also refer individuals to the adjudications officer, another independent attorney who is tasked with presiding over internal cases of wrongdoing uncovered by the monitor. To date, Barofsky has deferred taking remedial action pending discussions with the union and other parties to the settlement.
Nonetheless, the latest report, filed in federal court, is another biting and detailed account of infighting at the top ranks of the union, with Fain being portrayed, once again, as vindictive.
Fain, who is usually silent or measured in his responses to the monitor’s reports, issued a retort.
In a written statement furnished through a Chicago law firm, Fain said Barofsky is politically motivated and acting in bad faith, filing a report critical of him — while vindicating Boyer — at a time when the two are among candidates vying to win an upcoming election for leadership of the union.
“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,” Fain wrote. “The most reasonable conclusion is that he is playing political games and abusing his power.”
You can read Barofsky’s full report below:
Why did Fain sideline Boyer?
In May 2024, Fain accused Boyer of seven instances in which he showed he was “derelict in his duty,” the only cause written in the UAW Constitution that allows the president to remove responsibilities from an elected leader of the union. The monitor has said Fain was wrong to exercise that option.
In a letter, Fain accused Boyer of several shortcomings involving the union’s 2023 contract with Stellantis and in other negotiations with the company. Fain said Boyer agreed to concessions on employee attendance policies, profit-sharing guidelines and company car programs behind Fain’s back. The monitor disputes that Boyer went behind Fain’s back, citing communications between the two the monitor obtained. Further, Fain criticized Boyer’s handling of an agreement at a Stellantis-Samsung joint-venture battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana (Fain’s hometown), and being silent about the idling of Stellantis’ Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois. Those criticisms are hollow, too, the monitor said. Fain also said Boyer was wrong to schedule a Stellantis UAW council meeting in Puerto Rico and accused him of “repeatedly refusing” to collaborate with Fain’s team.
The monitor wrote: “Each of the seven allegations was either unsupported, unfounded, or — to the extent it had some factual basis — exaggerated to include a component of deception or a level of misconduct to support a charge of dereliction that was simply not present.”
He added: “In several instances, the allegations improperly shifted responsibility for shortcomings or mistakes made by the President’s Office during their negotiations with Stellantis onto Boyer.”
Monitor: Fain had other motives, destroyed text records
The monitor said Fain was motivated to punish Boyer for more than the reasons listed above.
On top of the dereliction claims, Fain stripped the oversight of the Stellantis Department from Boyer because he had settled grievances at Stellantis’ Warren Stamping Plant in a way that Fain did not approve, and that Boyer did not fire members of the Stellantis Department as Fain had instructed him to do.
This fact — that Fain was motivated by more than what was stated in the seven-point letter — is “the most compelling evidence that President Fain acted with retaliatory intent” against Boyer, according to the monitor.
The drafting of the letter itself also drew Barofsky’s criticism.
The monitor said files showed that Fain and his assistant, Chris Brooks (whose resignation in January was negotiated by the monitor), drafted the letter that was used to declare Boyer derelict.
Brooks has previously been accused by the monitor of playing a background role in a similar retaliation scheme against the UAW’s Secretary-Treasurer, Margaret Mock, who also saw her duties stripped from her by Fain and later reinstated by the monitor. Brooks did not immediately respond to a Free Press request for comment.
The monitor said Fain gave Boyer an ultimatum via a separate memorandum drafted by Brooks: Fire two of his staffers, or lose the Stellantis Department. Boyer did not fire the employees, and two days later, he lost his department for the seven other reasons, the monitor said.
Boyer, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press at the UAW’s convention last week, detailed the dispute over the firings.
“(Fain) wanted me to fire members of my staff, and I wouldn’t do it, and I knew he was gonna come after me,” Boyer said. “I stood my ground, because them people did nothing wrong.”
Indeed, the monitor said Boyer did nothing wrong.
Fain, though, is accused by the monitor of deleting text messages from his phone regarding the ultimatum issued to Boyer, which adds “to the evidence of bad faith,” the monitor wrote.
On top of Fain’s faulty charges as laid out by the monitor, Boyer said in the interview he believed he was punished for failing to sign off on a bonus at Stellantis’ National Training Center in Warren, which would have benefited Fain’s fiancee.
Further, the monitor said Fain attempted to direct Boyer to handle an issue involving his fiancee’s sister, who was injured while working at a Stellantis plant. The monitor says Fain attempted to push Boyer to handle her case from the outset, rather than going through the procedural channels usually used to navigate workplace injuries.
Fain’s texts on this matter, obtained by the monitor, indicate he saw the issue with his soon-to-be sister-in-law as a systemic workplace issue. But he still sought to have UAW leadership intervene on her behalf instead of going the proper route, Barofsky wrote in his report. Boyer told the monitor he refused to offer her “special treatment,” fearing a lawsuit.
“According to multiple witnesses,” the monitor wrote, “Fain was angry at Boyer for the refusal, which occurred approximately one month before Boyer’s removal.”
He added: “Fain inappropriately used the powers of his office to pursue a personal matter on behalf of a family member, an abuse of his authority.”
Regarding these accusations that Fain sought to pull favors for family members, the monitor said he is deferring further scrutiny to “the parties involved in the consent decree,” which would be the court, the union, the U.S. Department of Justice and the court-appointed adjudications officer, who handles disciplinary measures within the monitorship.
It is unclear which of those parties would be involved in that process, and when it would proceed.
Fain finally responds
During the series of recent reports on Fain, characterizing him as a hot-headed and vindictive union leader, Fain has largely remained publicly silent, commenting briefly through joint statements with other union leaders filed in court or saying nothing at all.
But now Fain says Barofsky has a personal vendetta against him that stems from a February 2024 disagreement over the union’s stance on the war in Israel.
“On November 30, 2023, the (UAW International Executive Board) voted to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In the subsequent months, Monitor Neil Barofsky made efforts to interfere in the political affairs of our union, culminating in a heated and highly personal disagreement,” Fain wrote.
That interference is a reference to Barofsky notifying Fain that the union’s call for a ceasefire in Israel had upset the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a New York-based Jewish advocacy group, in February 2024.
Barofsky warned the UAW leadership that the ADL had raised concerns about the union’s ceasefire stance. He pointed to a New York state law against the “boycott, divest and sanction” movement (a social movement intended to encourage the boycotting of companies doing business in Israel), which prevents state and local governments from working with organizations making calls to “boycott, divest and sanction” Israel.
Because the union represents graduate student employees at state universities in New York, Barofsky warned the union may be violating that law with its ceasefire stance.
Some UAW officials thought Barofsky’s warning was an overreach, including Fain. Emails shared by Fain’s reelection campaign to the Detroit Free Press show that a UAW lawyer, Ben Dictor, accused Barofsky of overstepping by passing along the ADL’s concerns to the international board. Barofsky said the issue was outside of his purview as the monitor, though he raised the concern in his personal capacity, according to the emails.
Soon after this disagreement between Fain and Barofsky over the ceasefire, which multiple UAW officials say culminated in Fain offering to fight Barofsky in the parking lot outside, the monitor opened the investigations into Boyer and Mock. Fain thinks the response was retaliatory.
“Mr. Barofsky has proceeded to issue report after report attacking our union, the rights of the President under the UAW Constitution, and the sincerity of my belief that Vice President Boyer and Secretary-Treasurer Mock were failing our members,” Fain said, adding, “I cannot remain silent anymore.”
Barofsky’s law firm, Jenner and Block LLP, in response to Fain’s letter, defended the monitor in a written statement to the Free Press.
“Neil Barofsky is one of the world’s most highly-regarded monitors. 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.”
Boyer, in a phone interview Thursday with the Free Press, said he has “mixed feelings” about the latest report.
He is thankful to have been cleared of the accusations leveled against him and is glad to be able to focus on representing the membership, but he said he is remiss that “once again, our union has to deal with allegations of wrongdoing, which brought us to this monitorship in the first place.”
Boyer, who is running for UAW president against Fain, said he disagrees with Fain’s reaction to the report.
“President Fain’s statement fails to address the report and instead, he’s accusing the monitor of playing politics,” Boyer said. ”The facts will come out.”
Fain, in his statement, said he’s only begun to speak.
“I’ll be sharing more with you in the coming weeks,” he wrote.
(This story has been updated with new information.)
Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW watchdog says Fain retaliated against vice president unfairly
Reporting by Liam Rappleye, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Liam Rappleye, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
