U.A.W.’s Monitor Investigates Accusations Against Its Leader, Shawn Fain

A court-appointed monitor overseeing the operations of the United Automobile Workers union is investigating disputes involving the union’s president, Shawn Fain, and two U.A.W. officials who say they were improperly stripped of duties.

The monitor, Neil M. Barofsky, also accused the union on Monday of a “lapse in cooperation” with the investigation, saying it had taken months to turn over relevant documents and then provided only a small fraction of those requested.

The union declined to comment.

The assertions at issue were included in a report filed in federal court in Michigan about Mr. Barofsky’s tenure as monitor, which began in 2021 as part of a consent decree after Justice Department investigations that resulted in the convictions of several union officials, including two past presidents, on corruption charges.

That process also resulted in the union’s first election of a president by a vote of the full membership — balloting that elevated Mr. Fain, running as an insurgent candidate, to the top job in a runoff last year.

One matter now under investigation, according to the filing, stems from a dispute over the role of the union’s secretary-treasurer, Margaret Mock. In February, the union’s international executive board voted to support Mr. Fain’s move to strip Ms. Mock of duties not mandated under the union constitution, on allegations that she “had engaged in misconduct while carrying out her financial oversight responsibilities,” according to the report.

Ms. Mock denied the allegations and asserted that the move had been “improperly instigated in retaliation for her refusal or reluctance to authorize certain expenditures” for the president’s office, the report said.