The Intercept published a story on how the UAW International Executive Board has been misleading the membership—including delegates at the 2022 Constitutional Convention—as to the size of the UAW strike fund, as well as the nature of the investments in the fund:
$30,000 at Detroit’s Greektown Casino, restaurant tabs approaching $7,000, top shelf cigars, Louis Roederer Cristal champagne, firearms, a $1 million lake house, and, of course, cocaine. This is just a partial accounting of the lavish spending that drew federal prosecutors to charge over a dozen United Auto Workers officials — including two former presidents — over the past five years with embezzling union funds and money laundering. UAW rank-and-file members are currently voting on whether to replace UAW President Ray Curry and allies of now-imprisoned officials in the incumbent Administration Caucus; reformers are running under the banner of UAW Members United on a platform of “No concessions. No corruption. No tiers.”
The election, which ends this month, will have an outsize impact on next year’s contract negotiations between workers and the largest auto manufacturers in America. But an internal union audit obtained by The Intercept shows that current UAW leadership gave its members only a partial view of the value of UAW’s assets — including the strike and defense fund used to pay striking workers’ wages — ahead of the upcoming election.
The article quoted Shawn Fain, running for UAW President on the UAW Members United slate, which issued a statement on the revelations in the article, including a call for more financial transparency and a reevaluation of the investment strategy of the strike fund.
“This is just another example of an out of touch International Executive Board that places its own agenda above that of the membership,” Shawn Fain, the Members United candidate for president, told The Intercept in response to information in the internal audit. “While the Curry Administration claims to be transparent, I find it shameful that the membership has been misled as to the actual value of the strike fund, and that our leadership has severely underreported that value.”
Our strike fund is one of the most crucial tools we have to fight the companies—and the membership deserves to know how large it is, and how the funds in it are being used! Read more in The Intercept.