United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has exhibited a "recurring pattern of retaliation" and "abused the authority of his office" with matters involving his fiancée and her sister, according a new report from the union's court-appointed watchdog, who Fain in response accused of "playing political games and abusing his power."

Neil Barofsky, an attorney at a Chicago law firm who is based in New York, filed the report Thursday morning in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Michigan. It found unsupported, unfounded and exaggerated reasons cited by Fain in Vice President Rich Boyer's removal from leadership of the Stellantis Department. Additionally, it found Fain acted improperly with respect to matters involving people close to him. Fain is calling the report "false" and suggests Barosky's reports "attacking" him are personal, given the union's support of a ceasefire in Gaza.

"After a thorough investigation, and as detailed further below," Barofsky wrote, "the Monitor has concluded that none of the seven stated reasons offered by Fain justified the removal of Boyer’s Stellantis oversight and that, instead, Fain’s actions were improper and fit into what has become a recurring pattern of retaliation."

The report came almost a week after the final day of the UAW's quadrennial Constitutional Convention kicked off. Delegates representing their union locals nominated Fain and Boyer to run for president alongside a few other candidates. Members will vote in a mail-in election this fall on the future direction of the Detroit-based organization.

Fain questioned the report's timing: "Now, more than two years after becoming aware of Vice President Boyer's allegations, and on the eve of our election, Mr. Barofsky has chosen to publicly release a politically charged and false report about me. The most reasonable conclusion is that he is playing political games and abusing his power."

U.S. District Judge David Lawson gained broad control of a deal to oversee the UAW approved in 2021 following a years-long public corruption scandal that sent numerous labor leaders and auto executives to federal prison. There are no criminal charges in connection to the latest report from Barofsky, who was selected for at least a six-year term that ends in 2027 by the UAW under former President Rory Gamble in consultation with the U.S. Justice Department and approved by the court to oversee the union.

A spokesperson for Jenner & Block LLP, the law firm where Barofsky is employed, said in a statement responding to Fain: “Neil Barofsky is one of the world's most highly-regarded monitors. He has acted with the highest levels of professionalism, integrity, and respect in his roles in public service, private practice, and as a DOJ-appointed monitor.”

A statement from the UAW also questioned the report's timing: "Release of this report immediately after the UAW Convention, when the candidates for International Union office were just nominated and their campaigns have begun in earnest, is deeply concerning. UAW members should decide who to elect to lead the union in a free and fair election."

A footnote discloses that the monitor gave the union 21 days to respond to a draft of the report and took feedback into consideration.

Boyer and his attorney didn't immediately provide comment on the report.

The watchdog said the uncovered evidence against Fain warrants "potential disciplinary action." Although Barofsky has the ability to bring charges seeking to discipline, remove, suspend, expel and fine UAW officers and members, he's deferring a decision about any remedial action pending further consultation with the parties involved in the consent decree, which includes the Justice Department.

'Preferential treatment'

Fain in May 2024 removed Boyer from head of the department overseeing labor relations with Stellantis NV, the maker of Jeep, Chrysler and more. He cited at the time a "dereliction of duty" over his handling of enforcing the union's new contract and layoffs at the company. Boyer refuted the allegation and said it was retaliatory for refusing to accede to demands by Fain that Boyer take actions benefitting Fain's fiancée and her sister.

Fain is engaged to Keesha McConaghie, according to his biography on the UAW's website. She is a financial analyst at the World Class Manufacturing Academy at the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center, where Fain previously oversaw operations.

Specifically, Boyer's formal complaint alleged Fain took action against Boyer after Boyer refused Fain’s request that he make personnel changes on his staff, declined to intervene in Fain’s fiancée’s sister’s worker’s compensation claim and failed to approve a cash bonus that would have benefited a pool of non-UAW employees at the Stellantis National Training Center, which included Fain’s fiancée.

Barofsky's report does detail intercessory actions for "preferential treatment" by Fain that includes calls to Boyer and other Stellantis Department staff to allow his fiancée's sister to stay home following an injury in April 2024 while working in a Stellantis plant. She was given restricted-duty work to accommodate medical restrictions, and such worker's compensation protocols typically are handled locally and sometimes with assistance by international servicing and benefits staff, if needed. Fain told the monitor his involvement was "addressing a systemic problem rather than seeking a personal favor," according to the report.

There was no direct evidence the situation one month before Boyer's removal from the Stellantis Department contributed to that decision, according to the report. Nonetheless, "President Fain inappropriately used the powers of his office to pursue a personal matter on behalf of a family member, an abuse of his authority," Barofsky wrote. "In doing so, he expended Union resources—his own time and that of a Vice President, an Assistant Director, and his Top Administrative Assistant—to seek relief from requirements that apparently applied to other Stellantis UAW members injured on the job."

The monitor also substantiated the claim that Fain acted improperly to obtain financial benefits for his fiancée through a bonus for employees at the NTC, which Boyer declined to approve, according to the report, though additional details aren't being shared pending further consultation with the parties of the consent decree.

Boyer's removal

On Boyer's actions, Barofsky said allegations improperly shifted responsibility for shortcomings or mistakes made by the President’s Office during their negotiations with Stellantis onto Boyer, and in other instances, Fain knew his characterizations were false.

Meanwhile, Fain acknowledged two other motivations for Boyer's removal not mentioned in his official letter explaining Boyer's removal, according to the report. They were Boyer settling approximately 200 health and safety grievances at the Warren Stamping Plant, frustrating an alternate strategy Fain was developing and hadn't shared with Boyer. Additionally, Boyer refused to fire or demote two of his senior Stellantis Department staff — a move that "appeared to be driven by personal animus and wanting to have greater control over Stellantis," Barofsky wrote.

"The investigation found that Boyer acted within his discretion in both instances," he said, "and that Fain’s decision to punish him was improper retaliation."

The monitor previously shared text messages related to his investigations into Fain were deleted from Fain's phone. This included a message from Top Administrative Assistant Chris Brooks, who resigned in December following the monitor's report accusing him and Fain of retaliation against Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock, that contained ultimatum talking points that Fain delivered to Boyer and a memorandum directing the personnel changes Fain wanted Boyer to make.

Barofsky's report concluded Fain's staff was aware of concessions made on absenteeism during Boyer's negotiations with Stellantis and didn't object or intervene, and the president's office negotiated the language of profit-sharing for temporary employees that had the benefit beginning in 2025 instead of 2024, according to the investigation. The claim that Fain had negotiated an agreement with Stellantis to include a vehicle leasing benefit in the contract also was "unsubstantiated," according to the report.

Barofsky also found the president's office obtained only a “reasonable and good-faith efforts” commitment from Stellantis, not a guarantee to hire UAW-represented employees at joint-venture battery plants in Kokomo, Indiana, and that Boyer persistently pressed the issue to the company, which recommitted to it two weeks before Boyer's removal. Additionally, Fain acknowledged he was in communication with Boyer regarding the delayed reopening of Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois and was not "completely silent."

Fain did object at one International Executive Board meeting, not repeatedly, to a Stellantis Council meeting held in Puerto Rico that received criticism, according to the report. But a full vote of the IEB approved the site. And finally, although Boyer did tell one staff member in the president's office that he wouldn't work with him, "there is no evidence that Boyer 'refused to work' with the President’s Office on the Stellantis negotiations, let alone repeatedly," the monitor wrote.

"In short, none of the seven allegations, individually or collectively," he said, "supported a finding that Boyer had acted with the 'malice or improper motivation' or the 'culpable intent' that the Union’s Public Review Board (“PRB”) has previously found to be required for a finding of dereliction of duty."

Fain's response

Fain in his statement issued Thursday by the Law Offices of Despres, Schwartz, & Geoghegan Ltd. said he has avoided commenting on internal matters "so as not to distract from our union's work and mission. But I cannot be silent anymore."

He promised to share more information in the coming weeks. But he specifically referred to Barofsky's "efforts to interfere in the political affairs of the union" that culminated in a "heated and highly personal disagreement, including inappropriate statements by Mr. Barofsky, at an IEB meeting in February of 2024."

The IEB issued a call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in December 2023, becoming the largest U.S. union at the time to do so. Last week, UAW delegates also passed an amendment to the union's constitution prohibiting union funds being investing in Israel Bonds, the broker-dealer that underwrites and markets debt securities issued by the State of Israel in the United States.

The Detroit News previously reported on email sent by the UAW's outside counsel in February 2024 to Barofsky that accused him of "a surprising lack of integrity" after he shared concerns about the union's position on the Israel-Hamas war. Barofsky, according to the email, called Fain for a conversation “strictly on a personal level” in which he shared "concerns about the union’s position on the crisis in Gaza," which Ben Dictor, an attorney based in New York, described as "inappropriate as your Office holds disproportionate power over the UAW."

That same month, an email signed by Barofsky was sent by a legal assistant to the IEB. It included a letter sent to the monitor's hotline by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization involved in combatting antisemitism that expressed concerns over a statement passed by Local 7902's joint council in support of a ceasefire. Barofsky in that email sent to the IEB acknowledged the matter was outside the monitor's jurisdiction but said he was forwarding it "given the serious concerns raised here" and that similar concerns were shared following the IEB's statement.

The monitor's office previously said in in a statement that Barofsky has carried out his duties with the "highest levels of professionalism and integrity."

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