The scandal-scarred United Auto Workers is promising to turn over a new leaf, but the struggle to reform the union may just be just getting started.
The UAW agrees to allow an independent monitor to oversee its finances and internal elections of officers as part of a tentative settlement of corruption charges with the U.S. Department of Justice, which a federal judge is expected to approve early next year.
Meanwhile, the sentencing of five UAW officials, including former Presidents Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, have been pushed back into next year, according to a spokesman for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The DOJ lawsuit lists the actions of more than a dozen union officers and officials accused of diverting millions of dollars in dues and political contributions reaching back at least a decade.
“For over 10 years, certain UAW officials, including certain former members of the International Executive Board, engaged in fraudulent, corrupt and illegal conduct for their own benefit and to the detriment of the members of the UAW, their families and the United States,” says the DOJ’s civil lawsuit that led to the settlement approved by the UAW’s executive board.
“Based on the prior conduct of certain former UAW officials, the circumstances and past events, the parties want to ensure that similar acts of fraud, corruption and illegality will not reoccur in the future within the UAW,” the lawsuit states.
Two past presidents of the UAW, one of the country’s most influential unions, face sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiring to embezzle union funds.
Both Williams and his successor, Jones, will be sentenced in federal court in Detroit in early 2021, a court spokesman says. Jones faces up to 10 years in prison, Williams up to 5 years and both could be fined up to $250,000.
Under the terms of the tentative settlement, the monitor will have no role in the union’s collective bargaining at the companies or institutions where the UAW represents more than 400,000 employees around the U.S. The UAW will nominate three monitors and U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider will choose one with approval by the federal judge.
But the larger question of reform could hang on the outcome of a referendum on whether to amend the union’s constitution to allow for direct election of top officers or to maintain the current system of delegates filling the leadership positions at a convention every four years.
The independent monitor will oversee the referendum.
“The membership now has a chance to take back control of the UAW from the powerful Administration Caucus, which is corrupt to the core,” says Wendy Thompson, a former local union president and a UAW activist for more than three decades.
However, the UAW’s current leadership, despite the scandals that have damaged its reputation and diminished its influence, apparently is not quite ready to accept major changes to the way the union’s leadership is selected.
Rory Gamble, the UAW’s current president, who has promised reform, calls the settlement of the DOJ lawsuit a necessary step in restoring the rank-and-file’s confidence in the union’s leadership and executive board.
Gamble (above), a member of the UAW executive board since 2006, says he was shocked by the conduct of his former colleagues. “I am just dumbfounded by some of this behavior,” he says, speaking of former union officers such as Williams and Jones. “You think you know someone, but it turns out you don’t.”
Nonetheless, Gamble is stopping far short of endorsing one-man, one-vote. Indeed, he suggests the idea of direct election of top officers has long been anathema to members of the UAW’s executive board, who argue union-wide elections would allow outsiders to influence union policy and internal politics.
The argument appears to have lost relevance in the wake of the scandal and federal investigation that has uncovered outside influence in union affairs through private charities, golf outings and especially the misuse of portions of an estimated $300 million in training funds from General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler to which the UAW had access over the years, according to court records.
As part of the tentative settlement, the UAW must repay the training funds a total of $15 million for improper “chargebacks” – money collected by the union for various services that was used to help balance its own budget, according to the federal lawsuit.
The UAW’s internal critics have complained for years there was no accountability in how the training money was spent.
Reports on the training funds required by federal authorities were sparse and money was used to fund jobs with training centers that critics say were basically a form of patronage that helped extend the influence of union leaders who looked the other way at corrupt practices.
“The UAW leadership became too clubby and inbred. While some district directors complained, others just went along unwilling to confront leadership until the corruption became obvious even to the feds,” John Russo, visiting scholar at Georgetown University and co-editor of “Working Class Perspectives,” says in an email.
Schneider (left) says the 5-year investigation, which also involved the FBI, IRS and Department of Labor, turned up no evidence that organized crime had infiltrated the UAW. Organized crime did not corrupt the UAW as it did the Teamsters union, which was placed under federal supervision three decades ago, he says.
