United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain's chief of staff has resigned following evidence that he colluded with the union's compliance director to falsify allegations against Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock, whose departmental assignments will be restored, according to a report filed Thursday by the union's court-appointed monitor.

The UAW also will restore leadership of the Stellantis Department to Vice President Rich Boyer and has disciplined Communications Director Jonah Furman, whose text messages show involvement in the scheme with Chris Brooks, Fain's resigned top administrative assistant, who has played an instigating role in the union's strategy. The Compliance Department will no longer directly report to Fain, as well.

The watchdog, lawyer Neil Barofsky, disclosed the details of the scheme and a subsequent cover-up in a report delivered to U.S. District Judge David Lawson, who gained broad control of a deal to oversee the UAW in 2020 following a years-long public corruption scandal that sent numerous labor leaders and auto executives to federal prison.

The leadership shakeups are significant admissions, according to experts, after Fain, backed by 11 other International Executive Board members, previously ignored Barofsky's recommendation to reverse action taken by Fain to strip Mock of oversight of 11 union departments and reassign her two board positions. But the watchdog has stopped short of filing any charges or removals, and the actions taken by top staff and leaders that were discussed in the latest report don't appear to be criminal.

"He's opened up the issue of Fain’s future to be decided by the membership itself," whether that happens in the next election or through UAW constitutional means of removing officers, said Marick Masters, professor emeritus of management at Wayne State University. "I think it would be hard to have confidence in a president that would participate in and supervise these activities, while also being committed to the kind of cultural reform you want going forward."

For David Pillsbury, a 22-year UAW member who works as a materials handler at General Motors Co.'s Flint Assembly plant, the actions taken by the union are insufficient.

"This is not transparency. This is not reform," said Pillsbury, 52, of Lansing, who participated in Fain's presidential campaign and now is considering running for an International Executive Board position next year. "Threats, retaliation and intimidation — that's what Dennis Williams and Gary Jones were doing."

The two former presidents were found guilty of a multi-year conspiracy to embezzle money from the UAW for their personal benefit.

The latest monitor report describes extensive destruction of text messages from the phones of Fain and the UAW’s former compliance director, Marni Schroeder, who resigned earlier this year. The messages over which the union and monitor went to court concerning access “were both material to the monitor’s investigation and responsive to the monitor’s document requests,” Barofsky wrote.

At least 123 texts were deleted from Fain’s phone during time periods being investigated by the monitor. That included messages relating to instructions Fain gave to then-Region 1A Director Laura Dickerson to make a motion to remove Mock from her departments.

“Neither official was able to provide a credible explanation for these deletions, which followed a pattern of selective deletion rather than wholesale removal of conversation threads,” Barofsky wrote. The monitor, however, managed to recover the destroyed messages from the phones of other UAW officials.

In a letter Thursday to UAW members, Fain wrote that in early 2026, he will reassign Mock to her former departments and reappoint Boyer to the Stellantis Department, pending board approval. He also named a new chief of staff and deputy chief of staff.

"It is also crucial that we build an internal culture of accountability, fairness, transparency, and collaboration," Fain wrote. "Our union is committed to building a culture of compliance, where staff can speak freely without any fear of retaliation."

He added: "My hope is that these changes strengthen our union and help us focus on our critical work as we gear up for 2028 and the many big fights ahead."

The report includes Fain’s awkward attempts to explain why messages were destroyed. Initially, Fain couldn't explain why the messages were missing, saying they “could’ve been inadvertently deleted.” Then, he offered theories, including that he may have mistakenly deleted the messages while also deleting spam and junk messages.

He also offered another explanation, saying someone may have accessed his devices when he was not present. “I leave my phones in my desk a lot in my office,” Fain said, according to the report. “Been in meetings where I’ve left them.”

Fain was asked whether his phone had a passcode. “He stated he did not remember when he had implemented it,” Barofsky wrote, “acknowledging: ‘Used to never have them, I don’t know at what point I put it on.’”

Barofsky’s assessment of Fain’s explanation was blunt.

“None of these explanations match the record of deletion here,” he wrote. “... The deletions were targeted to specific time periods that correspond directly to the events under investigation by the monitor, and in some instances, correspond to similar dates of texts that were deleted from the compliance director’s phone.”

Barofsky added: "When asked if he could explain how messages could be individually selected and deleted in this manner, Fain responded: 'I can’t right now. No.'"

The report provides behind-the-scenes details about resignations within Fain’s inner circle after officials were confronted with evidence about lies and the destruction of evidence.

The compliance director quit after being shown evidence that relevant and material texts sought by the monitor were deleted from her and Fain’s phones. She was also confronted with evidence that she, Brooks and Fain lied or provided misleading information during the investigation.

“Shortly after the monitor interviewed the compliance director and confronted her with the newly produced documents, she resigned, effective September 5, 2025,” Barofsky wrote. “After a draft of this supplement was provided to the union, it informed the monitor that Brooks would no longer be employed at the union as of December 31, 2025, a result of his resignation.”

Despite Schroeder's insistence to the union's executive board that her work was "independent," some of the more than 400 documents obtained by the monitor show Brooks and Furman were able to "almost entirely" rewrite the report, "adding false allegations that were left out of the initial drafts of that report, and excluding important exonerating information that would have demonstrated the falsity of their allegations," the monitor wrote.

Barofsky previously indicated there had been progress toward setting up internal ethics and compliance controls, and stronger systems in areas like purchasing, hiring and political spending. But that progress had been continually overshadowed by a culture of retaliation.

Barofsky has the power to bring disciplinary charges or seek to remove the union president or other officials. Because of the actions taken by the union, the monitor wrote that he doesn't intend to take further remedial action against it at this time.

"To be clear," he wrote, "these actions will not be sufficient on their own, as it will be critical for the Union to maintain the progress toward cultural reform."

Fain is almost three years removed from winning the first-ever direct election for the union's highest office and has since secured record contracts for members at the Detroit Three automakers. His track record will be put to the test starting in June when nominations for the union's governing International Executive Board will be taken during the union's quadrennial constitutional convention.

The monitor has repeatedly criticized Fain. In a previous report, Barofsky accused him of illegitimately demoting Mock, the second most-powerful leader of the union, while threatening to "slit" the "throats" of anyone who "messed" with his inner circle.

That inner circle included Brooks and Furman, who have been central to Fain's messaging and strategy, including the union's 2023 "Stand-Up Strike" against the Detroit Three. Their outsider status of not having been UAW members or working in a plant, however, has also drawn criticism.

The Detroit News left an inquiry seeking comment from Brooks, Schroeder, Mock and Boyer. Furman referred to a UAW spokesperson.

Rumors circled on social media this week that Brooks' Solidarity House office has been cleared out. Brooks was a former labor journalist from Tennessee. He'd previously led the NewsGuild of New York's contract campaign with the New York Times that resulted in at least 10.6% wage increase after a two-year fight.

At the UAW, Brooks had been a nucleus for strategy. He was also critical of the union's historical collaboration with the companies. Fain publicly called the automakers "enemies" during the 2023 strike, and Brooks spearheaded the sporadic walkouts during the more than six-week action.

Furman has led the union’s social media strategy, where, during the 2023 strike, it broke from tradition to update members on negotiations through Facebook livestreams and posted promotional videos criticizing company executives about their pay. Also a former labor journalist and organizer, he'd previously created campaigns for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York.

Furman was suspended for two weeks without pay. He now holds a subordinate position within the Communications Department, a result of discipline imposed by the union for the actions he took.

The monitor also continues to investigate Boyer's allegation that Fain unfairly retaliated against him in the removal of his leadership position, but he "commended" the union for his reinstatement in advance of any formal recommendation.

The Compliance Department will now report directly to the executive board, not the president, in an action previously recommended by Barofsky. Additionally, the union is granting the monitor access to its Culture Committee meetings, from which he was previously barred.

The report isn't flattering, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University, but it doesn't mean Fain has failed at his mission to clean up the union.

"Everything is relative," he said. "Look at the two or three or four presidents before. Does it sound like they cleaned it up? How many indictments do you have? How many sentences do you have? Did they clean it up perfectly? No. But are they working with the monitor? They don't have a, 'Where's Jimmy Hoffa's body?' I don't know that the membership looks at the day-to-day politics as much."

Members, on the other hand, he said, certainly do care about the record contracts that secured double-digit percentage wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments and shorter pathways to top pay as well as organizing victories at Volkswagen AG in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and on college campuses.

"Shawn Fain has made an impact," Wheaton said. "He wore it on his T-shirt: 'Eat the rich.' I don't think it was ever, 'Oh, we can all get along.' He got elected as a fighter, and his persona, especially with management, has always been a bit abrupt."

(Detroit News Staff Writer Luke Ramseth contributed.)

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