UAW Members Elect Reform Candidate as President

Mr. Fain declared victory on Saturday, narrowly defeating incumbent

Ray Curry,

who issued a statement saying Mr. Fain would be sworn in as president on Sunday. It is the first time in more than 70 years that a challenger defeated a presidential candidate from the UAW’s longtime ruling party.

The office of the federal monitor overseeing the election filed the final tally to a U.S. District Court in Michigan on Saturday. Those results, which had Mr. Fain winning 69,459 to 68,976, aren’t considered certified until all election-related challenges are resolved.

The election of Mr. Fain is a turning point for the UAW, which represents more than 400,000 workers in the automotive sector and other industries and is emerging from a yearslong corruption scandal. His campaign vowed to root out any residual corruption, while also taking the toughest stance against auto makers of any union leadership since the 1940s.

“Everything we do, at every stage, must be reinforcing the message: there is a new sheriff in town,” said a draft transition-plan document from early February that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal and verified by the Fain campaign. 

The UAW represents roughly 145,000 hourly members at U.S. factories owned by

General Motors Co.

GM -0.09%

,

Ford Motor Co.

F 0.79%

and Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and other U.S.-sold brands. The coming negotiations, which occur every four years, are set to begin this summer ahead of the expiration of the current labor contracts in September.  

Mr. Fain’s victory heightens the chance of a UAW strike at one of the auto makers, Wells Fargo analyst

Colin Langan

wrote in a recent research note. 

“The new reform candidates have less national bargaining experience and are promising an aggressive stance,” he said.

In a statement sent earlier this week, the Fain campaign said: “We need to take a new approach to the companies, and a new approach to how our union operates.”

This year’s round of collective bargaining was already setting up to be particularly contentious, with potential flashpoints over wages, high inflation and job security as the auto makers switch to electric vehicles. 

Meanwhile, the companies are in belt-tightening mode. GM recently said it plans to cut $2 billion in costs by next year and this month offered voluntary buyouts to most of its roughly 58,000 white-collar U.S. workers. Ford cut about 3,000 white-collar jobs and contract positions last year. 

The union vote resulted from a shift in the way the UAW selects top officials. Historically, leaders of the union’s local chapters elected the UAW’s top officers. In late 2021, the union’s rank-and-file voted to change the election procedure to allow members to directly cast ballots to pick their leaders.

The vote on the election change was required under terms of a civil settlement between the Justice Department and the UAW in 2020, following a multiyear federal investigation that led to the convictions of more than a dozen top UAW officials, including two former presidents. 

The corruption scandal eroded members’ trust in the UAW’s leadership, factory workers have said, and provided momentum to Mr. Fain and his reform group. 

Federal prosecutors, in filing charges against prior union leaders, described a culture of corruption that included kickback schemes, embezzlement and other illicit activities. Under terms of the settlement, a federal monitor oversees the union’s finances and other activities, including the recent election.

Mr. Fain and the other candidates on his reform-minded UAW Members United slate have said they want to unify a divided membership, ensure equal pay and benefits for workers at varying levels of the union and increase the value of retirees’ pensions. 

Mr. Fain faces a divided executive board, about half of which is filled by his caucus. The broader membership, too, is divided, based on Mr. Fain’s narrow victory margin, said Marick Masters, a professor of business with a focus on labor at Wayne State University in Detroit. 

“You have an opportunity now to see the extent to which rank-and-file may be dissatisfied with the current leadership,” he said.

Mr. Fain has been involved in contract negotiations both at the national level and at Chrysler Corp. factories, now owned by Stellantis, according to his group’s website.

As the auto industry develops more electric vehicles, which are less labor-intensive to produce than internal-combustion-engine cars, preserving manufacturing jobs in gas-engine plants will be a focus of the UAW, leaders have said. Late last year, Stellantis stopped operations at a 1,350-employee assembly plant in Illinois, citing the expensive EV transition as one reason it needed to cut costs.

The UAW’s last round of collective bargaining for a four-year contract in 2019 resulted in a 40-day strike at GM’s U.S. factories, which drained more than $3 billion from the company’s bottom line. 

The coming contract negotiations will be unfolding in a different economic and social environment from the 2019 talks. Rising inflation has eroded workers’ spending power, while organized labor in the U.S. has been reinvigorated in recent years. Worker-driven labor movements have picked up energy over the past two years, including strikes at farm-equipment maker

Deere

& Co. and snack-food company

Mondelez International Inc.

Write to Nora Eckert at [email protected]

Mr. Fain declared victory on Saturday, narrowly defeating incumbent

Ray Curry,

who issued a statement saying Mr. Fain would be sworn in as president on Sunday. It is the first time in more than 70 years that a challenger defeated a presidential candidate from the UAW’s longtime ruling party.

The office of the federal monitor overseeing the election filed the final tally to a U.S. District Court in Michigan on Saturday. Those results, which had Mr. Fain winning 69,459 to 68,976, aren’t considered certified until all election-related challenges are resolved.

The election of Mr. Fain is a turning point for the UAW, which represents more than 400,000 workers in the automotive sector and other industries and is emerging from a yearslong corruption scandal. His campaign vowed to root out any residual corruption, while also taking the toughest stance against auto makers of any union leadership since the 1940s.

“Everything we do, at every stage, must be reinforcing the message: there is a new sheriff in town,” said a draft transition-plan document from early February that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal and verified by the Fain campaign. 

The UAW represents roughly 145,000 hourly members at U.S. factories owned by

General Motors Co.

GM -0.09%

,

Ford Motor Co.

F 0.79%

and Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and other U.S.-sold brands. The coming negotiations, which occur every four years, are set to begin this summer ahead of the expiration of the current labor contracts in September.  

Mr. Fain’s victory heightens the chance of a UAW strike at one of the auto makers, Wells Fargo analyst

Colin Langan

wrote in a recent research note. 

“The new reform candidates have less national bargaining experience and are promising an aggressive stance,” he said.

In a statement sent earlier this week, the Fain campaign said: “We need to take a new approach to the companies, and a new approach to how our union operates.”

This year’s round of collective bargaining was already setting up to be particularly contentious, with potential flashpoints over wages, high inflation and job security as the auto makers switch to electric vehicles. 

Meanwhile, the companies are in belt-tightening mode. GM recently said it plans to cut $2 billion in costs by next year and this month offered voluntary buyouts to most of its roughly 58,000 white-collar U.S. workers. Ford cut about 3,000 white-collar jobs and contract positions last year. 

The union vote resulted from a shift in the way the UAW selects top officials. Historically, leaders of the union’s local chapters elected the UAW’s top officers. In late 2021, the union’s rank-and-file voted to change the election procedure to allow members to directly cast ballots to pick their leaders.

The vote on the election change was required under terms of a civil settlement between the Justice Department and the UAW in 2020, following a multiyear federal investigation that led to the convictions of more than a dozen top UAW officials, including two former presidents. 

The corruption scandal eroded members’ trust in the UAW’s leadership, factory workers have said, and provided momentum to Mr. Fain and his reform group. 

Federal prosecutors, in filing charges against prior union leaders, described a culture of corruption that included kickback schemes, embezzlement and other illicit activities. Under terms of the settlement, a federal monitor oversees the union’s finances and other activities, including the recent election.

Mr. Fain and the other candidates on his reform-minded UAW Members United slate have said they want to unify a divided membership, ensure equal pay and benefits for workers at varying levels of the union and increase the value of retirees’ pensions. 

Mr. Fain faces a divided executive board, about half of which is filled by his caucus. The broader membership, too, is divided, based on Mr. Fain’s narrow victory margin, said Marick Masters, a professor of business with a focus on labor at Wayne State University in Detroit. 

“You have an opportunity now to see the extent to which rank-and-file may be dissatisfied with the current leadership,” he said.

Mr. Fain has been involved in contract negotiations both at the national level and at Chrysler Corp. factories, now owned by Stellantis, according to his group’s website.

As the auto industry develops more electric vehicles, which are less labor-intensive to produce than internal-combustion-engine cars, preserving manufacturing jobs in gas-engine plants will be a focus of the UAW, leaders have said. Late last year, Stellantis stopped operations at a 1,350-employee assembly plant in Illinois, citing the expensive EV transition as one reason it needed to cut costs.

The UAW’s last round of collective bargaining for a four-year contract in 2019 resulted in a 40-day strike at GM’s U.S. factories, which drained more than $3 billion from the company’s bottom line. 

The coming contract negotiations will be unfolding in a different economic and social environment from the 2019 talks. Rising inflation has eroded workers’ spending power, while organized labor in the U.S. has been reinvigorated in recent years. Worker-driven labor movements have picked up energy over the past two years, including strikes at farm-equipment maker

Deere

& Co. and snack-food company

Mondelez International Inc.

Write to Nora Eckert at [email protected]