Why Is the UAW's Federal Monitor Involving Himself in the Union's Stance on Gaza?

The monitor tasked with overseeing the union’s compliance with a federal consent decree is inappropriately challenging the union’s call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

By Andy Levin and Sanjukta Paul August 8, 2024



https://inthesetimes.com/article/uaw-federal-monitor-ceasefire-gaza-union

As Michigan lawyers involved in labor law and policy, we were shocked to see that the federal monitor overseeing the United Auto Workers’ return to good governance has twice commented on the union’s positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That matter is completely outside of the monitor’s scope, and his improper interference in the union’s affairs calls into question his ability to continue to serve effectively in this role.

Let’s look at how we got here. In January 2021, a U.S. federal judge entered a consent decree—a negotiated, court-authorized settlement — to resolve fraud and corruption charges filed by the Department of Justice against the UAW, several of its officers, and management figures at Chrysler (now Stellantis). The civil and criminal charges concerned kickbacks, bribery and other wrongdoing among certain union officers and corporate managers, constituting clear misuse of union funds and members’ trust.

That consent decree led the court to appoint a private lawyer to serve as a monitor to oversee compliance with the decree. It also led to the ​“direct election” of UAW leadership for the first time, after members voted to exercise this right pursuant to the decree. That election resulted in victory for a self-defined reform slate, as current union President Shawn Fain and his running mates won a majority of executive board positions.

Fain was immediately faced with bargaining to renew contracts at Detroit’s Big Three automakers, the heart of the union’s historical and current membership and one of the central pillars of unionized work arrangements in the United States. Fain took a radically different approach to bargaining than his predecessors and emerged with a historic contract with each automaker, winning massive gains in wages, benefits and pensions, ending ​“tiers” that pitted workers against each other, and even creating avenues to bring workers in the automakers’ emerging battery plants under the master contract.

FULL story at link above.