The United Auto Workers finalized its nominations for the highest seats in the union on Wednesday, June 17, with current Vice President Rich Boyer officially jumping into a six-person presidential race to unseat the incumbent, Shawn Fain. Boyer, who has been in an enduring feud with Fain, emerges as a prominent contender against the popular president.
Delegates of the UAW spent Wednesday afternoon in the convention hall at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit nominating which candidates they would like to see take over the union’s international executive board, which is a 14-member panel of leaders that oversees the operations of the nearly 400,000-member union. Nominations for officers (president, vice presidents and secretary-treasurer) were finalized on Wednesday evening.
The race is largely stratified between those running on a slate with Fain and those running against him. Fain is running on a slate with a candidate picked for all but one seat on the executive board, with several current executive board members left off. Since the last election, tensions have flared between Fain and some of the union’s top leaders, most notably Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and Boyer. Neither Mock nor Boyer is running with a slate.
Details of infighting between Fain and certain members of the executive board have emerged periodically as Neil Barofsky, a court-appointed monitor tasked with overseeing the union as it emerges from a corruption and embezzlement scandal settled in 2021, has filed reports in federal court alleging that Fain has created a “toxic” workplace at the union’s headquarters.
Barofsky was tasked in 2021 with filing reports about the union every six months until 2027, when the period of oversight concludes, though that is not his only assignment.
For the upcoming election, candidates must be nominated at the convention and also pass a “vetting” process done by Barofsky.
According to election rules published by the monitor, the vetting process includes at least a “state and federal background check” and a review of the candidate’s disciplinary record within the UAW. The rules allow the monitor to request additional files and interview a prospective candidate before declaring them clear to run. If the monitor so chooses, he may consult with the U.S. Department of Justice about individual candidates.
The vetting process is done confidentially and has not been concluded, though the monitor’s website does contain a list of candidates who have already cleared the vetting process.
These are the candidates who accepted a nomination to run for one of five officer positions, the top spots on the 14-member international executive board of the UAW.
International president
Secretary-treasurer
Vice presidents
The UAW elects three vice presidents in each election to serve a four-year term. Traditionally, each of the three vice presidents is assigned a corresponding role presiding over one of the three Detroit automakers, Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis.
The candidates running for vice president:
When does the UAW vote?
Previously, elections for the top union posts were held during the convention, though that is not the case this year. Delegates, elected by their locals, would vote to decide on the leadership.
Since 2022, though, that election system has been replaced by a popular vote system, where each member has one equal vote. The so-called “one member one vote” policy was implemented as part of the settlement reached after the corruption scandal, and will remain in place during the monitor’s oversight.
Under the new policy, elections will be held using mail-in ballots sent to each member, rather than having votes hosted at the convention.
Ballots are expected to be distributed by mail in “late August,” according to the monitor’s website, and must be mailed back before Oct. 5 to a yet-to-be-announced tabulation site, where the votes will be counted on Oct. 6 by the monitor’s team.
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 finalizes candidate list for upcoming election. See who is running
Reporting by Liam Rappleye, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Liam Rappleye, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
