Posted on

United Auto Workers Seek to Shed a Legacy of Corruption



Share

DETROIT — For the United Auto Workers, the last five years have been one of the most troubling chapters in the union’s storied history.A federal investigation found widespread corruption, with a dozen senior officials, including two former presidents, convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and other lavish personal expenses. Since last year, the union has been under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor charged with ensuring that anticorruption reforms are carried out.The scandal tarnished a once-powerful organization and left many of its 400,000 active members angry and disillusioned.“You bet I’m mad,” said Bill Bagwell, who has been in the U.A.W. for 37 years and works at a General Motors parts warehouse in Ypsilanti, Mich., represented by Local 174. “That was our money, the workers’ money. I don’t like people stealing our money.”Now U.A.W. members have a chance to determine how much of a break from that past they want to make. In one of the changes prompted by the corruption scandal, the union this year will choose its leaders through a direct election — its first. Until now, the president and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, a system in which the union’s executive board could shape the outcome through favors and favoritism …

Read More