UAW members would have until 5 p.m. on Nov. 12 to return their ballots deciding how they want their top leaders selected, based on a set of interim rules posted Friday.
However, it’s not clear that this timeline, which would see ballot packages mailed to members beginning Oct. 12, will stand.
The rules, posted by a team led by Monitor Neil Barofsky, were issued in order to keep the process moving toward the court-authorized deadline for the election. The rules are a result of the agreement ending the criminal investigation into the union as part of the corruption probe. Barofsky, a partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Jenner & Block, is a former assistant U.S. attorney.
The UAW and the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards, however, are currently at an impasse over the use of union resources to advocate on the referendum question, according to the 23-page document.
The UAW, the document said, wants to amend the consent decree “to potentially allow limited and monitored use of union resources.” In the meantime, the monitor noted that “any use of union resources to advocate for either side of the referendum will be a violation” of the rules.
If the effort is successful and the consent decree is amended, the voting deadline would likely be extended by several weeks. UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg declined to comment.
The rules set the course for the upcoming referendum election, where union members can decide whether they want to stick with the current system where delegates at UAW conventions pick the top leaders or scrap that in favor of direct elections of the leaders by the members. The rules would allow all members, including part-time workers as well as reinstated and retired members, to vote as long as they are in good standing as of Nov. 1 of this year.
The push for direct elections, often referred to as “one member, one vote,” has been one of the key demands of dissidents within the UAW who contend that the current structure has allowed the union’s Administration Caucus to wield unchecked power leading to the crisis that could have seen a federal takeover of the union but was ultimately avoided. So-called union democracy was also something that former U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said he supported.
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The view that a change in union elections is needed, however, was challenged by Rory Gamble, who recently retired as UAW president.
“How you elect someone does not define whether they’re going to be corrupt or not. Corruption begins in the heart,” Gamble said in February. “To say how we elect our leadership involves corruption in any way is just not true. It is simply a political reach and something being perpetrated by people who see an opportunity here from a very bad situation.”
The federal probe, which sprang into public view in 2017, unearthed a scandal that tarnished the union’s image and exposed efforts by auto executives, authorities said, to buy labor peace and influence contract bargaining.
Vance Pearson, who once led a 17-state UAW region stretching from Missouri to California, was the last of the 15 people charged to date to learn his fate in the scandal. Pearson was sentenced last month to 12 months in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 in restitution along with the forfeiture of $122,258 on charges of conspiracy to embezzle union funds and use of a facility of interstate commerce to aid racketeering.
The scandal, which led to the conviction of two ex-UAW presidents as well as the former lead labor negotiator for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, showcased a range of criminal behavior, from misuse of worker training funds to bribes and kickbacks, involving millions of dollars.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which merged with Peugeot maker PSA Group in January to form Stellantis, is scheduled for sentencing on Tuesday for its role in the scandal. The company has pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Labor Management Relations Act and has agreed to pay $30 million and submit to an independent monitor.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence. Become a subscriber.
Read the rules
To read the interim rules, go to https://www.uawmonitor.com/