Brothers and sisters: The
conclusion of the second round of the UAW national officers’ election
has proven definitively that the election was a fraud conducted with
contempt for the rights of the rank-and-file membership. As challenged
ballots continue to be counted, Shawn Fain leads Ray Curry by just 505
votes, with only 12 percent turnout. The
narrow result and low turnout show Fain and Curry struggled equally to
win votes beyond their own bureaucratic networks and that neither
bureaucrat has significant support among the rank and file. In the
runoff, although many locals actually took measures to notify workers of
the election (they did not in the first round), Fain and Curry each won
votes from only about 5 percent of the rank-and-file membership. The election was a debacle for the UAW bureaucracy and has provoked a serious crisis. On
Thursday, Curry filed a formal protest demanding the court-appointed
Monitor refuse to certify the election results over “rampant
disenfranchisement” which “call the election into question and require
immediate investigation.” Fain’s
campaign manager issued a statement saying concerns over the legitimacy
and fairness of the election are “either false or irrelevant” and
calling on the court-appointed Monitor and Department of Labor to
certify the election and seat Fain as president. Brian Keller, who
endorsed Fain in the runoff, called on workers to protest outside union
halls demanding that no investigation be conducted into the election.
“We need this election to be done today and we need Shawn Fain to be
sworn in,” Keller said. The
responses of Curry, Fain and Keller reveal the total contempt of the
UAW bureaucracy and its defenders for the rights of the rank and file. Curry’s
statement declares that the election is illegitimate and the result
must be thrown out. This is not an allegation, it is an admission of
guilt made by the perpetrator himself. Curry
now acknowledges that “tens of thousands” of voters were barred from
voting by inadequate mailing lists and states that thousands upon
thousands more workers were disenfranchised because they did not receive
ballots even after calling the Monitor hotline for a replacement. Curry
and his faction know this to be true because it was their plan from the
start. Now they are saying it out loud in a last-ditch effort to retain
control of the apparatus. In November 2022, my campaign sued the UAW and the Monitor,
warning that the election was a fraud and that the UAW was
systematically violating the rights of the rank and file to cast
meaningful votes in the election. I asked Judge David Lawson to extend
the time to vote and order the UAW to take measures aimed at providing
every member with notice that an election was taking place, including
allowing members to vote in person at local union halls. My
lawsuit documented that the UAW bureaucracy deliberately withheld
ballots from hundreds of thousands of members to deny us the chance to
remove it from power. My campaign proved that the UAW used an internal
email list (called Local Union Information System, or LUIS) that no
rank-and-file worker has ever heard of to mail ballots. Even the judge
said this “kind of cut out the membership.” Curry
now admits I was correct. His statement asks a number of questions,
including, “What efforts were made to contact UAW members who did not
receive a ballot in the mail?” And, “Did voters who did not make
multiple calls receive ballots?” My
campaign demanded the UAW, the Monitor, the US Department of Labor and
Judge David Lawson answer each of these questions in open court before
voting in the first round concluded. But the UAW apparatus under Curry,
the Monitor and the Department of Labor each opposed my request to extend the deadline and require the UAW take measures to notify the entire membership.
Judge Lawson ruled against me and threw the support of the legal system
behind an election that the UAW’s sitting president now admits was an
illegitimate fraud! On December 20, after the first round of the UAW elections concluded with just 9 percent turnout, I filed a detailed protest establishing
how the UAW bureaucracy suppressed the vote. I demanded the Monitor
conduct a new election involving all candidates from the first round,
except this time with actual notice to the entire membership. The
Monitor never issued an official response to my protest and did not
certify the first round. But it proceeded to oversee the runoff as
though nothing were amiss. There
is overwhelming evidence that the UAW bureaucracy systematically
disenfranchised the rank and file. Despite this, Shawn Fain’s campaign
manager Nathan Pensler said yesterday that claims workers’ rights were
violated are “false or irrelevant,” though he provided no evidence the
election was fair. Referring to “concerns” over disenfranchisement, he
said, “We are confident they will be dismissed by the Monitor, and, if
necessary, the Department of Labor.” It
is highly revealing that the Fain faction of the bureaucracy is
fighting to take control of the UAW by condoning the bureaucracy’s
systematic violation the rights of the vast majority of rank-and-file
members. Their conduct explodes their claim to represent a “reform”
wing. Fain’s opposition to giving rank-and-file workers a meaningful
right to vote shows his faction is no different from Curry’s in its
hostility to the interests and democratic rights of rank-and-file
workers. As
the two factions of the bureaucracy fight over positions and our dues
money, their real concern is suppressing the movement of the rank and
file. In
a statement published Friday evening titled “Former UAW President Bob
King Opposes Any Delay in Finalizing UAW Election,” King warned that any
delay in certification would be “detrimental to the overall UAW
membership and full preparation for the upcoming bargaining,” adding,
“It is in the best interest of the membership to swear in the next
president whether that is Ray Curry or Shawn Fain before the Special
Bargaining Convention,” scheduled to meet the week of March 27 in
Detroit. What King really means is that it is in the best interests of
the auto corporations to ensure there is a “legitimate” leadership
before the contract fight begins. But
whatever leadership emerges out of this rotten process will never be
able to remove the stink of this fraudulent election, which proves that
the corruption scandal was not the product of “a few bad apples,” but of
the pro-corporate relationship the entire UAW bureaucracy has
maintained for decades at our expense. Every
day the rank-and-file members of the UAW confront urgent challenges:
massive inflation, declining wages, increased production, the threat of
unjust termination and unsafe working conditions. The experience of this
election shows the UAW bureaucracy is an obstacle to our struggles, and
that it will stop at nothing to violate our most basic rights. To
prepare for the fights ahead, workers must turn to one another through
the formation of rank-and-file committees aimed at abolishing the UAW
apparatus and giving power to the workers on the shop floor. That is
what I fought for in my campaign and that is what we must fight for
going forward. Contact my campaign → | 
