UAW President Shawn Fain overcame infighting among top officials and an ongoing federal investigation to cruise to a second term leading one of the nation’s most influential labor unions, setting up what’s likely to be another contentious contract fight with the Detroit 3 in 2028.
Fain received 68 percent of the votes cast for president, beating five other contenders to secure reelection, according to results released Oct. 13 by the court-appointed monitor who oversaw the election. Candidates on Fain’s “United UAW” slate swept their races for positions on the union’s International Executive Board, which likely will feature new vice presidents of the General Motors and Stellantis departments. Newly elected officers are scheduled to be sworn in Oct. 16.
Margaret Mock and Rich Boyer — whom the monitor determined that Fain had unjustly demoted, prompting the federal investigation — lost their races for secretary-treasurer and president. Mike Booth, vice president of the GM department, also lost.
The 99,670 ballots cast represented about 10 percent of active UAW members. That’s fewer than the 104,776 cast in 2022, when all members of the union were allowed to directly choose their leadership for the first time, and the 139,534 cast in the subsequent 2023 presidential runoff.
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“The membership has spoken,” Fain said in a statement Oct. 9, when he declared victory based on early results. “UAW members are united and want us to keep fighting and building on what we’ve done. We’re fired up for negotiations at places like John Deere, Volvo, and General Dynamics Land Systems in 2027, leading up to the Big Three contracts expiring on May Day 2028. These results are about taking on corporate America and reversing the worst out of control wealth inequality in America’s history.”
Brandon Campbell, formerly the director of a region that includes most of the north-central U.S., unseated Mock as secretary-treasurer, the No. 2 position once seen as a steppingstone to the presidency. Campbell, a Fain loyalist, had criticized Mock for failing to approve a budget and slow-walking other requests from the executive board.
The three vice president slots went to incumbent Laura Dickerson and challengers Kevin Gotinsky and Ryan Hiestand. While the UAW president can shuffle each of the three lieutenants’ duties, its likely that Dickerson will retain the Ford department, while Hiestand oversees GM and Gotinsky takes charge of Stellantis.
Gotinsky briefly led the Stellantis department after Fain demoted Boyer.
Despite the monitor’s findings that Fain created a culture of fear and retaliation during his first term, the UAW president rallied support by pointing to the lucrative contracts he negotiated with the Detroit 3 in 2023, as well as modest growth in union membership following unionization drives at Volkswagen and in the education sector.
Fain also overcame a rare public rebuke from three former UAW presidents and other former officials who endorsed Tricia Geiger, an international servicing representative in Indiana. Geiger finished fourth among the six presidential candidates.
The large margin of victory may give Fain confidence to again push the Detroit 3 at the bargaining table in 2028. He has said health care, pensions and job security as factory automation increases will be his top priorities.
Fain now is poised to lead the union beyond its six-year period of government oversight — the result of a long-running corruption scandal in which multiple officials, including two past presidents, were convicted of embezzlement.
The monitor’s term ends in early 2027, but experts have said the Justice Department could use its ongoing investigation as justification to extend its oversight, while the worst-case scenario of a complete government takeover remains a long shot.
