The Department of Justice is investigating whether United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain abused his authority to secure financial perks for family members and then punished a union official who resisted, touching off a heated dispute just months before leadership elections.
The allegations center on Fain's effort to obtain a bonus for his fiancee and worker's compensation for his sister. When Rich Boyer, the UAW's vice president, refused to approve the benefits, Fain removed him as chief negotiator for the union's Stellantis division, according to a report released last month by the union's court-appointed monitor.
Fain, who won his first election as a reform candidate in March 2023, flatly rejected the charges on Sunday and accused rivals of orchestrating a smear campaign ahead of union elections set to begin in August.
"Rich Boyer has fed the monitor false allegations about me and is now trying to weaponize these bogus allegations to steal the upcoming UAW election," Fain said in a statement. "He knows he can't win a fair fight because he has no real platform to run on."
The row between Fain and Boyer, who won an executive board seat in 2022, runs deeper than the current allegations. Fain said he removed Boyer from the Stellantis role because Boyer performed poorly for rank-and-file members and tried to hire family members into union positions, a practice Fain opposed. He also accused Boyer of cutting concessions deals with the automaker and failing to enforce the contract.
The investigation adds another layer to existing scrutiny of the UAW. In 2021, a federal court appointed independent monitor Neil Barofsky to oversee the union following a major corruption scandal. A federal grand jury has since subpoenaed Barofsky's report on the current allegations.
Fain took his counterattack further, claiming Barofsky himself harbors a political vendetta stemming from the union's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The UAW joined calls for a Gaza ceasefire in 2023, a position Fain publicly embraced in December of that year.
"Neil Barofsky has a political grudge against me because the UAW took an anti-war stance about what was happening in Gaza," Fain said.
The tension between Fain and Barofsky surfaced publicly in early 2024, when the union's outside counsel accused the monitor of showing "a surprising lack of integrity" after questioning the union's Gaza position. Barofsky later forwarded a letter from the Anti-Defamation League that expressed concerns about a local UAW chapter's ceasefire statement. Barofsky acknowledged the matter fell outside his jurisdiction but said he was passing it along due to "serious concerns raised."
Neither Boyer nor the Justice Department responded to requests for comment. Barofsky also did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him.
Author James Rodriguez: "Fain's accusations of political targeting ring hollow when an independent monitor appointed by federal court is supposed to be insulated from electoral interference, but the timing and the Gaza angle suggest this fight has become about far more than union discipline."
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