Former United Auto Workers presidents Ray Curry, Rory Gamble and Ron Gettelfinger on Monday publicly threw their support behind several candidates challenging current President Shawn Fain and his leadership slate in the Detroit union's upcoming election.

The three former presidents issued a statement endorsing Tricia Geiger for president, Margaret Mock for secretary-treasurer, and Kisha Richardson, Matt Slade and Tony Totty for the union's three vice president positions, while issuing several critiques of the current administration.

Several other retired UAW International Executive Board members also signed on to the endorsement, which was issued about two weeks before ballots are scheduled to be mailed to the union's approximately 400,000 active members plus retirees.

The endorsement is an unusual step for the three former UAW leaders who have mostly stayed on the sidelines in recent years under Fain, other than a sharply critical letter penned by Curry last year. It reveals ongoing internal rifts over how the influential union should be run.

Curry, Gamble, Gettelfinger and other former officials who signed onto the letter were part of the old-guard Reuther Administrative Caucus that ran the union for decades but lost its control several years ago. Curry led the union from 2021 to 2023, losing a close race to Fain in 2022. Gamble took over in 2019 in the immediate aftermath of the union's corruption scandal and the resignation of Gary Jones; Gamble was also investigated by federal authorities but was not charged. Gettelfinger, meanwhile, led the union from 2002 to 2010.

Their statement criticizes outsiders "with no union background" being hired in the union under Fain, administrative staff being terminated "without explanation," and general "infighting" that was highlighted in a series of reports issued by the federal monitor who continues to oversee the union.

The former presidents also criticized the union's recent move to maintain dues at the same level, after many anticipated they would be lowered. And they hit the current administration over not doing enough to address retiree cost-of-living adjustments, rising mandatory overtime at some plants, and other issues.

The ex-leaders backed Geiger, a UAW international servicing representative from the Toledo area who has served in several union roles, as their pick from among six presidential candidates. Mock is the union's current secretary-treasurer who ran alongside Fain four years ago but since had a falling out with him. Richardson is an attorney and Mock's chief of staff, Slade is a union servicing representative, and Totty is president of UAW Local 14 in Toledo.

In a statement, Fain slammed the former union leaders and said they just want to go back to "the old, failed ways of doing things." He said he'd opposed Gettelfinger's "sellout deal" in 2007 where wages, pensions and retirement healthcare were cut for new hires, creating a two-tier system — a major shift that occurred amid heightened financial pressures faced by the automakers. Fain said that in the 2023 negotiations with the Detroit Three, the union had taken the "first steps to ending tiers and in 2028, we're going to finish the job."

"This election is not going to be decided by a small group of former officials who tolerated corruption and negotiated two tier contracts," Fain said. "It's going to be decided by the membership on the issues that matter: whether we're going to (go) forward or backward as a union."

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