The United Auto Workers union is under attack by the federal government. A court-appointed monitor, imposed after major corruption scandals were brought to light, is conducting an investigation of alleged financial misconduct and alleged retaliatory action against International Executive Board members. Most ominous is the charge by Monitor Neil Barofsky — who has the power to remove elected officers, including President Shawn Fain — that the UAW is engaged in “obstruction” of his investigation. 

Barofsky began his investigation in February, not long after the UAW signed on to a multi union call for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestine. Not long after the union took this position, Fain received a call from the monitor, who expressed “concerns about the union’s position on the crisis in Gaza.” (Detroit News, July 3)

In response, UAW staff attorney Ben Dictor told the monitor: “Your call to President Fain on an issue so blatantly outside of the Monitor’s jurisdiction was inappropriate as your Office holds disproportionate power over the UAW and even a ‘strictly personal’ sharing of opinion implicitly implicates such power dynamic.” 

On Feb. 15, an email to the IEB, signed by Barofsky, cited a letter sent to the monitor’s hotline by the right-wing Zionist Anti-Defamation League, complaining about a pro-Palestine resolution passed by UAW Local 7902. This “represents a surprising lack of integrity to the Monitor’s role,” Dictor wrote back.

Barofsky was added to the “J100” list of “the top 100 individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life over the past year” by the pro-Israel magazine The Algemeiner in October 2023.

The bogus accusation of obstruction involves the monitor’s demand that the UAW immediately give access to around 116,000 separate documents, some of which have no clear connection to the stated purposes of the investigation. 

Attorneys representing the union responded to the monitor’s June 10 report, asserting the UAW’s right to review these documents before releasing them to the monitor. Moreover, the UAW has already granted him access to over 70,000 requested documents and has arranged 30 interviews with union staff and officers.

Clearly, these attacks from the U.S. government are aimed at deterring unions from taking even a mild political position against Israeli apartheid and/or the U.S. war machine. 

The capitalist state may also be intent on punishing the UAW for its revival of class struggle unionism, as exemplified by the powerful strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis last year.

Unions have every right to oppose the genocide in Palestine, and they have every right to fight the corporate bosses.

Hands off the UAW!

For more on this topic: workers.org/2024/06/79336/