A newly surfaced recording of a personal phone call between United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and the union’s court-appointed monitor discussing the Israel-Hamas war sheds new light on the fraught relationship between the two men that Fain claims fueled the watchdog’s investigations into him.
The 11-minute recording obtained by The Detroit News is a snippet of a December 2023 conversation between Fain and the monitor, attorney Neil Barofsky.
In the recording, Barofsky suggests Fain’s statement on the UAW International Executive Board’s call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war could “potentially cross the line into the area of antisemitism” by mentioning the UAW’s previous efforts against fascism during World War II and apartheid in South Africa.
Barofsky, who is Jewish, warned the allusion to the UAW’s past social justice work could appear to create a comparison between the modern conflict and the previous ones that Fain referenced.
“In the statement, when you made comparisons to the UAW’s prior statements against fascism, World War II, against apartheid in South Africa,” Barofsky said in the recording, “and the CONTRAs, it unintentionally, I believe unintentionally, drew a parallel between the actions of Israel after it was attacked by Hamas.”
Fain replied by clarifying his position that he is in opposition to the civilian lives lost and that Israel should target the Hamas leaders.
“Okay,” Barofsky said on the phone call, “so that is what your intent was to compare it to the Nazis. And I would just —”
“No, it’s not,” Fain replied.
Barofsky, a lawyer at Chicago-based Jenner & Block LLP, has described in federally filed investigation reports a pattern of retaliatory actions by Fain against subordinates, which now has escalated to a U.S. Justice Department investigation for which Fain has hired a criminal defense team, he confirmed in a Facebook livestream on Monday night. Fain has pointed to the 2023 phone call as evidence that Barofsky has a “political grudge” against him and is abusing his power.
“The monitor had a political disagreement with me that became a personal vendetta,” Fain said on the livestream to members on Monday night, where he revisited details of the union’s ceasefire statement, the call with Barofsky, as well as the heated meeting the two had a few months later with members of the union’s International Executive Board.
Barofsky, of New York, was appointed in 2021 to a tenure of at least six years, leading a team tasked with implementing reforms that target union election, compliance and investigations. His role came under a consent decree between the UAW and the Justice Department following a years-long corruption investigation into bribes, kickbacks and embezzlement that resulted in prison sentences for several automotive executives and UAW officials, including two former presidents.
Asked for a response to comments from the recorded phone call, a Jenner & Block spokesperson in a statement on Thursday said the independent monitor was established with the authority and duty to remove fraud, corruption, illegal behavior, dishonesty and unethical practices from the UAW and its constituent entities, and to otherwise enforcee the consent decree.
“The Monitor’s now-concluded investigations into the UAW’s president were initiated,” the statement said, “after several of the senior-most Union officials made allegations of misconduct, corruption, and retaliation, which the Monitor’s thorough and impartial investigation ultimately found were substantiated.”
The statement didn’t address the specific content of the phone call between Fain and Barofsky.
The Fain campaign declined to comment on the recording beyond Fain’s comments Monday night.
The conclusion of Barofsky’s investigation into Fain’s actions to remove UAW Vice President Rich Boyer from leadership of the Stellantis Department and the revelation of the DOJ probe into the claims he pressured Boyer to secure benefits for his fiancée and her sister comes weeks before the ballots for the UAW election of its top officers are set to be mailed out. Boyer is running against Fain, along with a few other candidates.
The investigations, their findings and members’ interpretation of them could affect how the rank and file decide on the future leadership of their union, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University.
“Shawn Fain won by a small margin last time,” he said. “Almost 50% didn’t vote for him. It’s not unusual for an election that close; you only have to swing a small percentage to change the outcome.”
Details of the call
Barofsky’s call to Fain took place in December 2023, when the monitor was in Switzerland at the time investigating Credit Suisse’s historical Nazi ties. He’d received a report from the IEB meeting where the ceasefire petition was discussed. Responding to comments from board members expressing interest in learning more about the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Barofsky reached out to Fain regarding an offer from Ira Forman, who served as a U.S. special envoy under the Obama administration on monitoring and combating antisemitism, to speak with the union.
The conversation, however, did steer to the content of a statement Fain made on social media platform X, saying he was proud of the UAW’s governing International Executive Board for signing onto a petition with other U.S. labor groups calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine: “From opposing fascism in WWII to mobilizing against apartheid South Africa and the CONTRA war, the @UAW has consistently stood for justice across the globe.”
Barofsky said during the call he agreed with Fain that countries “have to be mindful and restrained” in their actions and likened the deaths in the Palestinian territories to the people killed in the bombing of Dresden during World War II by the Allies.
“Everyone should have a right to have their view on whether that’s wrong, right, necessary in war, unnecessary in war, and that’s why I say views on a ceasefire, that’s one thing, but when you make the comparison to the fascists? The read on that is going to be that you’re comparing the actions of Israel to the actions of the Nazis, and that is a very unfortunate and very common characterization right now,” Barofsky said in the recording. “It’s comparing Israel to the Nazis, say that they’re acting and engaging in acts of genocide, and as I said, I’m not an expert, but that does potentially cross the line into the area of antisemitism, because whatever you want to say about Israel, if they wanted to commit genocide, it wouldn’t look like this.”
Barofsky continued, saying that “genocide looks like what Hamas did” on Oct. 7 and described some of the graphic events of the deadliest day in Israel since its independence, when attacks launched by Hamas and other militant groups from the Gaza Strip killed and took hostage hundreds of civilians. He likened that to the actions of the Nazis.
“I’m not excusing or justifying, or it’s not my job to say what Israel is doing is right,” Barofsky said. “But they’re not doing that. But there is a perception of that’s what Israel is doing.”
Barofsky later said he and Fain “100% agree” that there should be a ceasefire and Israel should target Hamas leaders. And when Fain suggested that he sees the Palestinian people as the victims in the conflict, Barofsky noted the rise in antisemitic attacks as well as anti-Islamic sentiment and shared a personal anecdote of his children walking past protestors holding UAW signs and chanting antisemitic language.
He said if Fain’s statement were just a call for a ceasefire, he wouldn’t have made the phone call, but because of what Barofsky described as a comparison to Nazi Germany, “I think you may have unintentionally crossed a line that is an unfortunate one.”
Barofsky at the end of the conversation also encouraged Fain to reach out to Fain’s friends who are Jewish to get their thoughts, as Fain had suggested earlier on the phone call. He also recommended a recent column by The New York Times’ Bret Stephens on the history of antisemitism. Fain said he would think about the offer from Forman.
The recorded conversation strikes a different tone from the explosive, expletive-laden transcript of a Feb. 21, 2024, International Executive Board meeting on which The Detroit News previously reported. That discussion had been spurred by Barofsky’s phone call to Fain and a subsequent email from Barofsky to the IEB forwarding a note from the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit fighting antisemitism, regarding concern with a statement issued by a UAW local. Outside counsel from the UAW had replied, accusing Barofsky of overstepping his role.
At that meeting, Fain said the monitor had labeled his comment antisemitic on their call and that he’d “fight your ass in front of this building in a heartbeat” to anyone who accuses him of such. Barofsky strongly denied that he had used the word antisemitic or suggested as much about Fain during a phone call weeks earlier between the two.
“I don’t think that you’re antisemitic,” Barofsky said in the February 2024 meeting. “I have no reason to think that you’re antisemitic. It was a conversation about me wanting to provide perspective and information … And if you heard that or perceived that, I’m really sorry that that happened. But I’m very careful in my wording, and I would never have said something like that, even if I did believe it, and I did not.”
He also stated that while certain personal beliefs were being attributed to him, “you don’t know my beliefs, you don’t know my views,” including on how he feels about calls for a ceasefire.
It was at that same IEB meeting where the IEB also voted to reassign the majority of Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock’s duties due to a perceived dereliction of duty. Days later, Barofsky began investigating the accusations alongside Mock’s response that her removal was retaliatory. He concluded in reports last year that staff in the president’s office colluded with the union’s compliance director to falsify allegations against her and cover it up. The report prompted her reassignment to the roles and the resignation of Fain’s chief of staff. Boyer also was returned to head of the Stellantis Department at the same time.
Frequently, there is contention between a court-appointed monitor and defendants when it comes to executing a consent decree, especially when a monitor calls out the defendant for doing something, said Samuel Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor who formerly worked for the DOJ.
“While there’s incentive to try to make it work, there’s always friction,” Bagenstos said. “That may be a piece of what we’re seeing here.”
He added that a monitor doesn’t have authority to opine generally to the dependent in the case outside of the context of the consent decree.
Fain on Monday said he’s remained mostly quiet on the monitor’s investigation until now, but felt it was time to discuss his history with Barofsky because, he said, the monitor has “put his thumb on the scale of the upcoming election” by issuing his most recent critical report of Fain, and referring details of that investigation to the DOJ.
Fain said when Barofsky indicated a few months later to UAW leadership that he had not voiced personal opinions to Fain, or taken issue with the union’s political positions, “I took major issue with that” characterization, Fain said.
“And yeah, we had it out at that meeting,” Fain said. “We used foul language, we had a heated discussion, and I thought that was the end of it. Days later, however, Barofsky opens his first investigation into me.
“You know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’m also not a freaking idiot,” he added. “Barofsky doesn’t like me. That’s OK with me. I didn’t take this job to impress a monitor. I did it to change how we operate as a union. To put the membership first, to win great contracts, to organize workers, and to fight like hell for the working class.”
bnoble@detroitnews.com
X: @BreanaCNoble
lramseth@detroitnews.com
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Phone call audio sheds new light on tension between UAW’s Fain, monitor | Exclusive
Reporting by Breana Noble and Luke Ramseth, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Breana Noble and Luke Ramseth, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
