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    United Auto Workers Usher In New Era of Leadership

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    Shawn Fain, who ousted the incumbent president, is presiding over a convention to chart the union’s approach in contract talks this year.The United Auto Workers union has opened a new chapter in its storied history, and it may end up looking a lot like its combative past.Over the weekend, the 88-year-old union confirmed that an outsider, Shawn Fain, had prevailed in a hotly contested election for president, ousting the incumbent. An electrician whose father and grandfathers were also U.A.W. members, Mr. Fain has promised to take a tough negotiating line for increased wages in contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.“It is a new day for the U.A.W.,” Mr. Fain said on Monday at the start of a three-day convention, where hundreds of delegates will hammer out priorities and strategies for the contract talks that will formally open this summer.“We are here to come together for the war against our one and only true enemy — the multibillion-dollar corporations and employers who refuse to give our members their fair share,” Mr. Fain said.He opened his address by shouting, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” — drawing out the final word in the style of the famed boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer.Mr. Fain, 54, won by a razor-thin margin after prolonged vote-counting and more than two weeks of wrangling over some 1,600 challenged ballots. With the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes — 483 more than the incumbent, Ray Curry. Mr. Fain was declared the victor, and Mr. Curry conceded, when the margin exceeded the number of ballots still under challenge.The election was the first in the U.A.W.’s history in which the president and the union’s other senior executives were chosen through direct balloting of members. In the past, the leadership was chosen by delegates, a system in which favors and favoritism played a heavy role.T-shirts on display at the convention showed support for the union faction led by Mr. Fain. Rebecca Cook/ReutersThe democratic election had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the U.A.W.’s efforts to carry out anti-corruption reforms. The monitor was appointed as part of a 2021 settlement of a federal investigation that found that top union officials had embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers, and had spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials, including two former presidents, pleaded guilty.Mr. Curry was not a target of the corruption investigation but many members saw him as linked to the establishment that had been running the union for years.Mr. Fain takes office along with several other outsiders running on his slate who were elected to senior posts by convincing margins. They won support from members who were angered over the corruption scandals and wanted an executive team that would push harder for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the automaker formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A.Decades ago, the U.A.W. had more than 1.5 million members and the power to influence presidential elections and demand steady increases in wages and benefits. When the manufacturers resisted, it called strikes that shut down a large part of the industry. Over the years, the U.A.W.’s gains helped lift wages and living standards for a broad swath of manufacturing workers across the United States.But its influence declined as the Detroit automakers struggled. When G.M. and Chrysler were reorganized in bankruptcy court in 2009, the union made concessions on wages and benefits that it has not won back, and it has had to weather the closing of dozens of plants. It now has about 400,000 members.The contract talks come after years in which G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been reporting record results and have paid significant sums to workers in profit-sharing bonuses. In 2022, for example, G.M. made a profit of $9.9 billion and paid a bonus of $12,750 to each of its U.A.W. workers.Members want Mr. Fain to fight for wage increases to offset inflation, an end to a two-tier wage system that pays newer workers significantly less than veterans and assurances that new plants will be built in the United States rather than abroad.At the convention, the rank and file appeared to back Mr. Fain, despite his narrow margin of victory.“I’m ready to strike,” said Romaine McKinney III, an electrician at a Stellantis stamping plant in Warren, Mich. “We have to show these companies that we are ready to walk out.”Jamonty Washington, a worker at a Detroit plant where Stellantis makes Jeeps, said he started his job 12 years ago making just under $16 an hour — working next to a colleague making $31 an hour. He has worked his way up to $30 an hour, he said, but thinks the union has to fight to eliminate such differences in pay.“Equal pay for equal work,” he said. “It’s time for this union to get back to being militant — not asking but demanding.” More

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      President Is Ousted in United Auto Workers Election

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      Shawn Fain, an insurgent, edged Ray Curry after calling for a harder line in contract talks. The union has been dogged by corruption scandals.An insurgent candidate has won the presidency of the United Auto Workers union, potentially setting the organization on a more confrontational path as it heads into contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.Shawn Fain, a 54-year-old electrician who has been a member of the union for almost three decades, defeated the incumbent, Ray Curry, after a monthslong election battle in which Mr. Fain’s allies won seats across the union’s executive board.Mr. Fain claimed victory on Saturday, and Mr. Curry conceded, as a court-appointed election monitor neared the end of the vote count.Mr. Curry, a 57-year-old former assembly line worker with a master’s degree in business administration, was appointed president in 2021 after a broad federal investigation into a series of corruption scandals. He had carried out a number of reforms but ultimately was seen by many members as not enough of a break with previous presidents and executives linked to wrongdoing.Ray Curry was appointed president of the United Auto Workers in 2021.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressWith the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes, or 50.2 percent, and Mr. Curry had 68,976, according to an unofficial tally. The count had gone on for weeks, prolonged by the inspection of challenged ballots.Mr. Curry said Mr. Fain would be sworn in on Sunday and would preside over a convention to hammer out plans for the contract talks.The vote was a runoff after a contest in November in which Mr. Curry collected about 600 more votes than Mr. Fain but neither man reached the 50 percent threshold to be declared the winner.“The winds of change run strongly through this election,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It defines the direction of the U.A.W. going forward.”Mr. Fain said he intended to be more confrontational in contract negotiations, a position that appealed to members after years of concessions on wages and benefits and following corruption scandals that ended with two former presidents serving time in prison.“This is the end of company unionism, where the companies and the union work together in a friendly way, because it hasn’t been good for our members,” he said in an interview as the vote count neared completion. “These companies have enjoyed record profits for a decade, and our workers are still regressing and struggling to get by.”Insurgents aligned with him won a majority of offices on the union’s international executive board — an outcome widely seen as reflecting the members’ desire for significant change at the top of the union.But Mr. Fain and the new administration have little experience in running the union’s operations.It was the first election open to all members of the union, and had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the union’s efforts to wipe out corruption. Previously, the union’s presidents and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, in which the result was often determined by favors and favoritism and did not always reflect the sentiments of rank-and-file workers.“I knew our members were fed up,” Mr. Fain said. “It was just a matter of whether they were willing to vote for change, because they’ve never been able to do that before.”The shake-up comes as the U.A.W. is about to start talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis on four-year labor contracts. The talks come as the automakers are again earning significant profits. G.M. reported profits of $9.9 billion for 2022. Ford reported a loss, but its North American operation remains its main profit generator. Stellantis, which was formed by a merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA in 2021, made 17 billion euros, with a large share coming from North America.It also occurs as the automakers are making the transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones, which have fewer moving parts and require less labor.“The union is in the midst of a most important transition since the introduction of the assembly line with the move toward electric vehicles, and that could result in the loss of a lot of automotive jobs,” Professor Shaiken said. “How the new leadership navigates that will impact the U.A.W. and the labor movement.”For decades after its founding in 1935, the U.A.W. had the power to influence presidential elections and consistently won middle-class wages and benefits that set the standard for workers in many industries across the country. At its peak, in 1979, it had 1.5 million members.But the U.A.W.’s membership and influence steadily declined as the Detroit automakers faced increasing competition from Toyota and other foreign automakers that were building nonunion plants across the South. As those rivals gained a greater foothold, the American companies reduced their payrolls and shut factories.The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler — which is now part of Stellantis — forced the union into major concessions, including a wage system that left newcomers earning substantially less than veteran workers.While diminished, the U.A.W. still has influence. “The union can still turn out voters in critical states like Michigan and Ohio and other states that can determine a presidential election,” Professor Shaiken said.The U.A.W. now has about 400,000 active members, including college teaching assistants and casino workers as well as auto manufacturing workers. Both active members and the union’s 600,000 retirees were eligible to vote in the elections. For the last several years the U.A.W. has been reeling from a federal corruption investigation that eventually found a number of schemes in which senior officials embezzled millions of dollars from union coffers. They spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.In total, federal investigators found that $1.5 million had been siphoned from membership dues, and $3.5 million from union training centers. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty, and two former presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, were sentenced to prison. Each was released after serving nine months.As part of a consent decree settling the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed an outside monitor to oversee the implementation of democratic and transparency reforms. One of the mandated reforms was a one-person-one-vote election. More

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      United Auto Workers Appear to Rebuke Leaders in First Vote by Members

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      Insurgent candidates showed strength, citing corruption scandals and calling for a tougher bargaining approach. The union president seems headed for a runoff.Shawn Fain, a challenger who has been a United Auto Workers member for 28 years.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesRay Curry, president of the United Auto Workers.Paul Sancya/Associated PressThe first United Auto Workers election open to all members appears to have produced a wave of opposition to the established leadership, signaling the prospect of sweeping changes for a union tarnished by a series of corruption scandals.As the count neared completion on Friday, the current president, Ray Curry, was in a close contest with an insurgent challenger, Shawn Fain, with each getting slightly under 40 percent. The remaining votes were scattered among three dark-horse candidates.If those results are confirmed by a court-appointed monitor overseeing the count, Mr. Fain and Mr. Curry will head for a runoff election in January.“If these results hold, it can only be seen as shocking,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It’s a major upset for the incumbent administration. The union is entering a new and profoundly different era.”In an interview as the results were tallied, Mr. Fain said he believed the vote reflected a desire for broad change, citing not only the corruption scandals but also an inability to win broad wage and benefits improvements over the last decade as the three Detroit automakers rang up significant profits.“I think it definitely shows the pulse of the membership and the pure fact that they’re fed up,” said Mr. Fain, an electrician who has been a member of the union for almost three decades. “I think the members want to get this union back in line and see the election as their shot.”A union spokeswoman said Mr. Curry would make a statement on the election after the results were certified.The strength of outsider candidates aligned with Mr. Fain was seen in voting for several other national and regional positions. In a two-way race for secretary-treasurer, the union’s second most powerful post, an ally of Mr. Fain had more than 60 percent of the vote.In addition to the union’s 400,000 active members, 600,000 retired members were eligible to vote in the leadership election, though not to seek office. About 106,000 ballots were cast.Since its founding in 1935, the U.A.W. had used a system in which its president and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, with results often shaped by favors and favoritism rather than the views of the rank and file.This year’s “one person, one vote” election was one of the measures that the union had agreed to as part of a settlement of a federal investigation that uncovered widespread corruption at the top of the organization. A dozen senior officials, including two former U.A.W. presidents, were convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and other lavish personal expenses.Last year, a court appointed a monitor to ensure that the union followed through on anticorruption reforms.Mr. Curry, 57, a former assembly-line worker from North Carolina who holds a master’s degree in business, was named president in 2021 with the task of instituting those changes after years of scandals tarnished the union’s image. He has held senior positions in the union for a decade, and many U.A.W. members see him as the candidate of the establishment.Mr. Fain, 54, and his slate are backed by a dissident group, Unite All Workers for Democracy. He has called for a wholesale turnover in the union’s leadership and a more confrontational approach to negotiating with manufacturers.The election comes at a critical time for the union. The U.A.W. is working to organize several battery plants that the three Detroit automakers have built or are building with partners — factories not automatically covered by its contracts with the manufacturers. Workers at one, a General Motors plant in Ohio that opened last summer, are scheduled to vote on U.A.W. representation on Wednesday and Thursday.G.M. is building two other battery plants in Tennessee and Michigan. Ford Motor is building two in Kentucky and one in Tennessee. Stellantis, which was formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and the French automaker Peugeot, intends to build a battery plant in Indiana.Next year, the U.A.W. is set to negotiate new labor agreements with the three automakers, and challengers to Mr. Curry campaigned on promises of taking a more confrontational stance. Members have demanded a resumption of cost-of-living wage adjustments, once a key element of U.A.W. contracts, which had been forgone in recent years when inflation was mild and the automakers were struggling to survive.Members also want an end to two-tier wage and benefit packages. Workers hired in 2007 or earlier have a standard wage of $32 an hour and are guaranteed pensions. Workers hired after 2007 start at lower wages and can work up to the top wage over five years. They also get a 401(k) retirement account instead of a lifelong pension.In the last decade, the automakers have rebounded strongly and now earn substantial profits. In the first three quarters of this year, G.M. generated $8 billion in net income. Ford and Stellantis earned less but still posted solid profits.Decades ago, the U.A.W. wielded immense political power, and at its peak represented more than 1.5 million workers. It lost clout as the Detroit automakers scaled back in the face of rising competition from foreign-owned competitors like Toyota and Honda. Despite attempts, it has not been able to organize workers at any of the foreign-owned auto-assembly plants that have sprung up across the South and the Midwest.Around 2014, the union became the focus of an investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit. The inquiry revealed that top officials had embezzled membership dues and money set aside for training centers and used it for expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty. Gary Jones, a former president, served nine months of a 28-month sentence before being released from federal prison this year. Mr. Jones’s predecessor, Dennis Williams, was released after serving nine months of a 21-month sentence. More

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      United Auto Workers Seek to Shed a Legacy of Corruption

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      After his predecessors’ imprisonment, the union’s president is being challenged for re-election in the first direct vote by its membership.DETROIT — For the United Auto Workers, the last five years have been one of the most troubling chapters in the union’s storied history.A federal investigation found widespread corruption, with a dozen senior officials, including two former presidents, convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and other lavish personal expenses. Since last year, the union has been under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor charged with ensuring that anticorruption reforms are carried out.The scandal tarnished a once-powerful organization and left many of its 400,000 active members angry and disillusioned.“You bet I’m mad,” said Bill Bagwell, who has been in the U.A.W. for 37 years and works at a General Motors parts warehouse in Ypsilanti, Mich., represented by Local 174. “That was our money, the workers’ money. I don’t like people stealing our money.”Now U.A.W. members have a chance to determine how much of a break from that past they want to make. In one of the changes prompted by the corruption scandal, the union this year will choose its leaders through a direct election — its first. Until now, the president and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, a system in which the union’s executive board could shape the outcome through favors and favoritism, and the results did not always reflect the views of the rank and file.“Everyone in power is in one party, and it’s been like that forever,” said William Parker, a retired worker who is eligible to vote and hopes to see a new slate of officers take over. “But now we’ve got one man, one vote, and we are mobilizing to change.”Over four days last week, at a sometimes-chaotic convention in Detroit, some 900 delegates debated a wide range of issues facing the union. Four members were nominated to challenge the incumbent president, Ray Curry, in the fall election. Under rules approved by the delegates, the union’s nearly 600,000 retirees can vote but cannot run for executive offices. If no candidate wins at least 50 percent of the vote, the top two will vie in a runoff.The convention proceedings dragged out each day as members stepped to microphones to offer motions, objections and requests for clarifications. A day after voting to increase stipends for striking workers to $500 a week from $400, they rescinded the move. At least three times Mr. Curry was scheduled to give a state-of-the-union address only to have the extended debates force postponements, and the convention adjourned without his address.Mr. Curry is seen as a strong favorite for re-election. He has held senior posts for more than a decade and became president in 2021 in the fallout from the corruption scandal. One potentially serious challenger is Shawn Fain, an electrician who has been a U.A.W. member for 28 years and holds a post with the union’s headquarters staff. He is part of a slate of candidates for senior posts, and is backed by a dissident group, Unite All Workers for Democracy, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the election campaign.Shawn Fain, a U.A.W. member for 28 years, is a potentially serious challenger for the union presidency.Sarah Rice for The New York Times“Members have to believe in the leadership and believe that the corruption is behind us,” Mr. Fain said.The other candidates are Brian Keller, a quality worker at Stellantis who for years has run a Facebook group critical of the union’s leadership; Will Lehman, a worker at a Mack Truck plant in Pennsylvania; and Mark Gibson, a chairman at Local 163 in Westland, Mich. Read More on Organized Labor in the U.S.Apple: Employees at a Baltimore-area Apple store voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s 270-plus U.S. stores to do so. The result provides a foothold for a budding movement among Apple retail employees.Starbucks: When a Rhodes scholar joined Starbucks in 2020, none of the company’s 9,000 U.S. locations had a union. She hoped to change that by helping to unionize its stores in Buffalo. Improbably, she and her co-workers have far exceeded their goal.Amazon: A little-known independent union scored a stunning victory at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. But unlike at Starbucks, where organizing efforts spread in a matter of weeks, unionizing workers at Amazon has been a longer, messier slog.A Shrinking Movement: Although high-profile unionization efforts have dominated headlines recently, union membership has seen a decades-long decline in the United States.The challengers and Mr. Curry agree on most of the key issues at stake in next year’s contract negotiations. Members want automakers to resume cost-of-living wage adjustments, once a key element of U.A.W. contracts, and eliminate compensation differences between newer and more senior workers. Workers hired in 2007 or earlier earn the full U.A.W. wage of about $32 an hour and are guaranteed pensions. Workers hired after 2007 have started at lower wages and can work up to the top wage over five years. They get a 401(k) retirement account instead of a pension.Dorian Fenderson, a U.A.W. member at a G.M. location in Warren, Mich., started a year ago as a temporary worker at $17 an hour and after four months was made a permanent hire, making $22 an hour.“There are people making $34 doing the same work as me,” he said. “I know they’ve been here a long time, but it’s not really fair to people like me.”The opposition candidates have called for the U.A.W. to take a more confrontational line in contract negotiations to win back concessions now that the manufacturers are solidly profitable, and to push them to keep more production in the United States and use more union labor. G.M. is building four battery plants in a joint venture, and Ford Motor is building three with its own partner. The union will have an opportunity to organize those plants, but success is not guaranteed.“We are hemorrhaging jobs, and that has to stop,” Mr. Fain said.Mr. Curry said he was confident that battery plants would be organized and that the workers would be covered by U.A.W. contracts with the automakers. He said similar joint ventures had been represented by the union in the past, and noted that current contracts assign engine production to the U.A.W.“Our belief is that batteries are the powertrains of electric vehicles,” he said in an interview. “It’s just new technology. We have a right to negotiate that and establish those locations.”One potential weakness for Mr. Curry could be recent actions that have riled some members. He and members of his executive board recently increased pay and pensions for themselves and others working at the union’s headquarters. A vice president who is running for re-election spent $95,000 in union funds on backpacks that were embroidered with his name and were to be given to members at union gatherings, a move that could be seen as using union money for his campaign.In a July report, the court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, wrote that he had 19 open investigations into possible improprieties, and said Mr. Curry’s leadership group had been uncooperative at times. Mr. Barofsky, a lawyer at a New York firm, wrote that the union’s leaders had uncovered mishandling of union funds by a senior official but that they had concealed the matter, though he added that cooperation and transparency had improved in recent months.Mr. Curry said that once he learned of the communications issues with the monitor, he stepped in and addressed the matter.“You have to read report to the end, and at the end the monitor talks about true transparency, response time, and change in counsel, the steps we have taken to shows we are moving in a positive direction,” he said. “And I’ve asked the monitor, if he has issues, to come directly to me so I don’t read about it in a report four months later.”Mr. Barofsky declined to comment beyond the findings in his report.Decades ago, the U.A.W. was a powerful organization that could influence presidential elections and consistently won increases in wages and benefits, often through hard-nosed negotiating and strikes. Its contracts with G.M., Ford and Chrysler set standards that helped pull up pay and benefits for working classes all around the country, union and nonunion alike.Mr. Fain’s grandfather kept his first Chrysler pay stub from 1937. For decades, the U.A.W.’s contracts with automakers set the standards for pay and benefits for the working class.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesBut its fortunes waned as the Detroit automakers steadily reduced their U.S. operations and struggled to compete as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other foreign automakers built nonunion plants across the South. The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler forced the union into once-unthinkable concessions, including the two-tier wage structure.Over the last 10 years, the automakers have rebounded, often with record earnings, and union workers have benefited. Last year, G.M. paid a profit-sharing bonus of $10,250 to each of its U.A.W. employees. But on other fronts, the union is still in retreat. A 40-day strike in 2019 was unable to prevent G.M. from closing a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and workers have gone without cost-of-living adjustments to their wages since 2009.The corruption investigation was started around 2014 by the U.S. attorney in Detroit, and eventually found schemes that embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers. Top union officials used the money for expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty. As part of a consent decree to settle the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed Mr. Barofsky to monitor the U.A.W.’s efforts to become more democratic and transparent.In July, a former U.A.W. president, Gary Jones, was released from federal prison after serving less than nine months of a 28-month sentence. Another former leader, Dennis Williams, served nine months of his 21-month sentence. Other convicted officials were also released after serving less than half of their sentences.At the convention last week, the shortened sentences were a source of frustration for many attendees, but as the proceedings pressed on, many backed the positions of Mr. Curry and the current executive board on issues that arose.David Hendershot, a forklift driver at a Ford plant in Rawsonville, Mich., said that he wanted the union to push for higher wages in contract talks next year, and that he wasn’t happy with the corruption that took place. But he isn’t sure he wants a wholesale change in leadership. “I’ll probably stick with what we’ve got,” he said. More