Who is the UAW?
As you think about the potential of union representation at BAC, please recognize that the issue before you is not only whether you want a union acting as your exclusive bargaining representative, but also whether the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Workers of America (“UAW”) is the right union to address your concerns. We raise this question because the Harvard Graduate Students Union is affiliated with the UAW.
In answering this question, you may want to consider UAW’s leadership and history. In 2020, the United States filed an anti-corruption and anti-fraud civil lawsuit against the UAW in federal court.1 As part of settling this lawsuit, UAW agreed to accept a federal Monitor tasked with monitoring issues of fraud, misconduct, and corruption in the union for six years.
In 2021, Gary Jones, the former President of the international United Auto Workers union, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for conspiring with at least six other high-level UAW officials in an eight-year conspiracy for embezzling money from the UAW to pay for personal expenses, including golf clubs, private villas, cigars, golfing apparel, greens fees at golf courses, and high-end liquor and meals. During the conspiracy, Jones used UAW money to purchase over $60,000 in cigars and four sets of custom-made golf clubs for the use of high-level UAW officials.2
In 2022, the former Financial Secretary Treasurer of UAW Local 412, Timothy Edmunds, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for embezzling over $2 Million in UAW funds, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.3
As recently as July 2024, the Monitor appointed by the federal government in 2020 said he was investigating allegations that current UAW President Shawn Fain retaliated against a vice president who refused to act on orders that would have benefited his partner and sister and allegations that a regional director embezzled union funds by using a UAW corporate credit card for personal purchases and misappropriating Union property.4
As the union or BAC pro-union colleagues approach you and request your support, it is important that you ask yourself if UAW is the kind of organization you want representing you.
I hope you will say “No” to signing a union authorization card.