Toward the end of last year, the United Auto Workers union (UAW) executive board passed a resolution calling on President Biden to “push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.” The resolution was mild. It did not, for example, call on the U.S. to stop furnishing weapons to Israel, and the UAW shortly afterward uncritically endorsed Biden for re-election.
Even so, there was a backlash from the government. A powerful government official with the legal authority to oversee the day-to-day workings of the UAW, supposedly to make sure it’s being run democratically, called UAW President Shawn Fain to complain about this decision. The government “monitor,” Neil Barofsky, is a well-known Zionist. Barofsky admitted that concern with the UAW’s stance on foreign policy was not part of his job. Barofsky nevertheless followed up by forwarding a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League, an influential Zionist organization with considerable clout in U.S. politics. The monitor’s effort to get the UAW to reverse its decision to oppose the brutal war on Gaza is ironic, considering that the monitor is supposed to promote union democracy, which surely includes the right of the UAW leaders to take a stand against government policy.
To its credit, the UAW executive board responded with a letter demanding the monitor stop harassing the UAW about its stance on Gaza. However, the UAW did not challenge the monitorship itself in spite of the monitor’s outrageous abuse of his position. In 2021, the UAW leadership had accepted the monitorship as part of a plea deal to settle corruption charges, which had already sent several union officials to jail. The UAW agreed the monitorship should continue until 2027.
Complicating the situation, a falling-out between President Fain and several members of the Executive Board has given the monitor an excuse to further interfere with the inner workings of the UAW leadership. Fain curtailed the power of the union’s secretary-treasurer and replaced the head of the union’s Stellantis division, claiming they were undermining the functioning of the union. Both complained to the monitor that their demotions were political retaliation due to policy disagreements. The monitor took advantage of their complaints to demand the union allow him to review all its internal records and correspondence, including records of discussions of bargaining strategy. This is an unprecedented expansion of his authority, and many observers believe it is an additional form of harassment over the Palestine resolution.
Whatever the truth of the charges that Fain abused his authority as UAW president, the solution is not government intervention in the internal affairs of the union. Today, the monitor is harassing the UAW because he’s irritated that it made a mild criticism of the government’s horrific policy in the Middle East. UAW members should see this incident as a warning of how the UAW’s agreement to accept being monitored opens it up to more serious government pressure. The monitor has the authority to crack down hard on the UAW in the event rank-and-file members decide to defy unjust court decisions and laws that impede workers’ ability to organize militant struggle against the employers. Whether on questions of international politics or how to struggle in the workplaces, workers shouldn’t take orders from the government, which represents the wealthy and big business.
