The front entrance of Solidarity House, the UAW headquarters

The Case for Replacing UAW Monitor Neil Barofsky

In 2024, UAW Monitor Neil Barofsky carried out an effort to intervene in UAW policy decisions and overturn the UAW’s opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Barofsky should be replaced for attacking the political independence of the UAW and violating his duties under the consent decree.

This is a republished UAWD resolution, with a new introduction to provide context, being co-released with The Struggle for Class-Independent Unionism in the Face of State Intervention.

Over the summer, the conflict between UAW President Shawn Fain and the UAW’s federal court-appointed monitor Neil Barofsky was back in the news. On June 25, Barofsky released his latest report alleging that Fain abused his authority and retaliated against the UAW’s Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and Vice President Rich Boyer.

Fain countered the Monitor’s attack by saying Barfosky was “playing political games and abusing his power.” Specifically, the Monitor was punishing Fain for the UAW’s public position in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.

In the Daily Struggle article, “Standing Down: Reflections on Shawn Fain’s Presidency,” four members of the UAWD Steering Committee—Andrew Bergman, Jeremy Bunyaner, Nolan Tabb, and Judy Wraight—addressed Fain’s handling of past attacks by the Monitor:

“Barofsky launched an investigation of Fain in his search for a way to attack Fain after the UAW took a position in support of a ceasefire in Gaza that offended Barofsky. […] Fain could’ve himself gone public, in one of his well-watched Facebook Live appearances, and made the case to the rank and file, explaining that his actions weren’t self-serving but were to reinvigorate UAW militancy.”

“But Fain again took a risk-averse approach, believing that having a good argument and not “airing dirty laundry” from within the bureaucracy would insulate him. The result is that the UAW membership, rightfully, feels uninformed about a complex set of accusations and that Fain’s public silence has driven many to take the side of Mock, Boyer, and the Monitor, who support an apolitical, austere vision of unionism.”

In October of 2024 UAWD passed a resolution, available on our website and reproduced in full below below, that calls for the replacement of Barofsky.

Resolution: UAWD Opposes Attacks on the UAW by the Government and Billionaire Class and Calls for the Replacement of Federal Monitor Barofsky

This resolution was passed at the October 2024 Annual Membership Meeting on October 13, 2024.

Unite All Workers for Democracy calls for the replacement of federal monitor Neil Barofsky because of his illegal attempt to intervene in UAW policy decisions. These acts are an explicit violation of his duties under the consent decree. His acts must be seen as an example of the government and the billionaire class working to undermine our union’s political independence and our right as a union to take whatever political positions our membership and elected leadership decide on democratically.

Our union would never allow a monitor, a government official, or a corporate CEO to interfere with our union’s right to reject a bad offer during contract bargaining. In fact, we would call out that interference as a form of corruption and fight it in the courts and on the shop floor. UAWD sees our right to democratically adopt political positions as equally important. This right, for example, enabled us to put time and resources toward fighting against the Right to Work law in Michigan and ultimately defeating this political attack against the labor movement. Our political independence plays just as crucial a role in winning strong contracts for UAW members as our bargaining independence, and we must be just as committed to fight to defend it.

Barofsky’s campaign against the UAW’s political independence

Extensive reporting has revealed that Barofsky has exhibited a clear bias against the UAW’s position in support of a ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted last December by an overwhelming vote of the International Executive Board. This bias is based on the monitor’s political beliefs, which are affecting, or create a perception of affecting, his actions as monitor. According to the American Bar Association standards for monitors, where there exists any factor that could bias or impair, or be perceived to bias and impair, a monitor’s judgment, objectivity or independence this serves as the basis for removal of the monitor.

Monitor Barofsky twice tried to dissuade President Fain and the IEB from upholding the position on Palestine and Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed over 40,000 Gazans, including thousands of children. Some estimates, including by the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet, put the number of fatalities closer to 200,000. The monitor’s undue pressure had a chilling effect on the IEB and thus affected its future decisions and actions.

On December 13, 2023, Barofsky contacted President Fain and urged him to rethink the union’s position calling for a ceasefire. In the call, he conflated protests against the atrocities being committed in Gaza with antisemitism. President Fain correctly answered Barofsky that the union’s resolution was in no way antisemitic, but simply an expression of the union’s desire for peace.

Monitor Barofsky did not stop there. In February 2024 he contacted the IEB again to apply pressure in opposition to the union’s call for a ceasefire. Barofsky attached a letter from the Anti-Defamation League to his email to the IEB that once again incorrectly conflated support for the call for peace in Gaza with antisemitism.

Barofsky’s violation of his duties as monitor

When the union did not renege on its position for a ceasefire in Gaza, a position shared by labor and progressive organizations across the U.S. and worldwide, Barofsky escalated his demands on the union and began to accuse the UAW of noncompliance. He issued a demand that the union supply 116,000 documents, many of which dealt with collective bargaining and policy decisions outside the scope of the monitor’s authority.

Barofsky has also exploited divisions that have emerged in the IEB, weaponizing complaints filed by Secretary Treasurer Mock and Vice President Boyer and publicly announcing investigations into President Fain regarding those complaints. He did this despite the clear basis for President Fain’s actions in the UAW Constitution.

A wider attack on our union on the issue of Gaza

Barofsky’s overreach must be seen in the context of attacks on UAW members and locals across the country, by government officials nationwide and the monitor himself, based on a knowingly false and manipulative conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism:

An attack on class struggle unionism

While the current focus of these attacks is on the issue of the union’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza, this takes place within the context of growing hostility by corporations and the government to the rebirth of class struggle unionism signified by President Fain and the UAW reform movement.

For over 40 years, the corporations benefited from the UAW’s adoption of a line of cooperation with management, leading to disastrous consequences for workers. Under the former leadership of the UAW, our members were subjected to wage and benefits tiers, elimination of pensions, and a deterioration of working conditions. The corruption in the union was a direct product of that class collaboration with the billionaire class. And because of the influence of the UAW, these policies penetrated the entire U.S. labor movement.

The election of UAW President Shawn Fain, a UAWD member, and the other leaders on our UAWD Members United slate has enabled us to begin reviving the proud class struggle tradition of the UAW and advancing the cause of international working-class solidarity. This was not what the business class hoped for or counted on. The stand-up strikes, the organizing of Volkswagen and the broader movement by our union to organize the South, and the militancy of UAW workers against the system’s complicity with genocide in Palestine, are threats to their class interests.

We remember how Ron Carey, after being elected president of the Teamsters in a democratic election with the aid of a federal monitor, was run out of office the next year by the government following the militant strike he led in 1997 against United Parcel Service to end tiers and the abuse of part-time workers.

Our message is: We won’t allow the federal monitor or any other government or corporate entity tamp down militancy and activism in our union. We defend our movement to build a union run by and accountable to its rank-and-file members. We defend our union’s right to stand firmly for a ceasefire in Gaza.

It’s time to replace the federal monitor due to his illegal interference in our union’s affairs.

We will keep up the fight for a return to the UAW’s militant tradition of class struggle and the union’s rightful place in an emerging international working-class movement.

Featured Image Credit: Andrew Bergman