UAW President Shawn Fain is under federal investigation over allegations of retaliation against union leaders

(CBS) – According to a court filing, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and other union leaders are being investigated by a federal court-appointed monitor.

According to a 32-page status report filed Monday, Fain is being investigated for allegedly failing to cooperate with union leader Neil Barofsky and failing to provide requested documents. Fain also allegedly retaliated against the UAW’s secretary-treasurer for refusing to authorize “certain expenditures upon request and/or for the benefit of employees of the President’s Office.” In the report, Barofsky wrote that members of the International Executive Board (IEB) passed a motion allowing Fain to remove the secretary-treasurer from her duties following allegations of misconduct.

The report also said Barofksy is investigating Fain’s firing of one of the union’s vice presidents from overseeing the Stellantis division in May 2024. The vice president claimed Fain retaliated against him because he “refused to engage in financial misconduct to benefit others.”

In an independent investigation, Barofsky received allegations that a regional director was involved in possible embezzlement.

Barofsky was appointed in 2021 to investigate the union in connection with a bribery and embezzlement scandal that led to Convictions of former UAW leaders.

The report said that shortly after Barofsky’s third report in July 2022which concluded that the UAW was keeping information under wraps. However, in February 2024, he began investigating board members, including Fain, the secretary-treasurer, and one of the union’s regional directors, after the UAW’s willingness to cooperate began to “erode.”

Around that time, the union submitted about 2,600 of the 116,000 documents requested. More than 80 percent of the documents submitted were submitted days before the latest report was released on June 6.

“Although the union cooperated and made UAW employees and management available for interviews with the Monitor’s investigative team, it did not cooperate and failed to provide timely and complete documents relevant to the investigation. Instead, it forced the Monitor to conduct these interviews without being able to provide all potentially relevant and timely documents,” Barofsky wrote in the report.

The report cites a settlement that states the inspector has unrestricted access to requested documents and has the authority to investigate “fraud, corruption, illegal conduct, dishonesty and unethical practices in the UAW and its affiliates.”

The UAW argued it could withhold documents based on confidentiality claims; however, Barofsky said that only applied to his attendance at board meetings, which he does as an observer.