Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh,where we have some of the worst air quality in the history of the city, Pittsburgh has implemented Maroon Status advising people not to leave their homes.
Audio Shows Barfosky Backed UAW Ceasefire Statement - Contradicting Fain
Yesterday, Payday Report released a 6,700 word expose titled “Leaked UAW Transcripts Discredit Fain’s Attack on UAW Monitor Barofsky.”
This week, the Trump Administration impaneled a grand jury in Detroit to look into retaliation against whistleblowers who exposed financial misconduct in the UAW. All of this comes just six weeks before over 300,000 UAW members vote for the union’s president.
To shore up his support, Fain has gone on the attack claiming that Barofsky is attacking him because of UAW’s support for a Gaza ceasefire, but new audio shows that Barofsky supported the UAW’s ceasefire effort.
“I’m done being silent. Neil Barofsky has a political grudge against me because the UAW took an anti-war stance about what was happening in Gaza,” Fain told the Detroit Free Press.
As proof of Fain’s claim, he has pointed to a legal threat from the ADL that Barofsky forwarded to the UAW’s Executive Board.
An expose by Payday showed that the union was facing lawsuits from Zionists costing the UAW hundreds of thousands of dollars. UAW transcripts obtained by Payday Report show that the board specifically requested Barofsky to provide them with information about how they could fight accusations of antisemitism.
Transcripts obtained from the UAW (after a nearly two year fight by Payday Report) showed that Barofsky denounced the attempt by the ADL to threaten the UAW with lawsuits alleging antisemitism in the union’s position on Gaza.
“I think [the ADL is uninformed. I think he is wrong,” Barofsky told the UAW’s Executive Board about the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in February. “I don't agree with it.”
Fain also claimed that Barofsky spoke against the UAW’s ceasefire. However, audio of a call between Barofsky and Fain in December of 2023 shows that Barofsky supported the UAW’s ceasefire, but was just worried about how it could look to compare Israelis to the Nazis.
Speaking just six weeks after the October 7th attack that killed 1,195 Israelis, largely civilians, by Hamas, many Jews like Barofsky saw Israel as having a right to defend itself. Now,three years later, with public knowledge of how Israel imposed starvation and famine on Gaza more widespread, the majority of Americans agree that Israel engaged in genocide.
(Full disclosure: around December of 2023, Payday Report started using the word “genocide” to decsribe Israel’s attack on Gaza).
However, Barofsky said that he supported the UAW’s ceasefire, but didn’t agree with the wording. From the Detroit News:
Barofsky later said he and Fain "100% agree" that there should be a ceasefire and Israel should target Hamas leaders. And when Fain suggested that he sees the Palestinian people as the victims in the conflict, Barofsky noted the rise in antisemitic attacks as well as anti-Islamic sentiment and shared a personal anecdote of his children walking past protestors holding UAW signs and chanting antisemitic language.
He said if Fain's statement were just a call for a ceasefire, he wouldn't have made the phone call, but because of what Barofsky described as a comparison to Nazi Germany, "I think you may have unintentionally crossed a line that is an unfortunate one."
Barofsky at the end of the conversation also encouraged Fain to reach out to Fain's friends who are Jewish to get their thoughts, as Fain had suggested earlier on the phone call. He also recommended a recent column by The New York Times' Bret Stephens on the history of antisemitism. Fain said he would think about the offer from [Obama’s Envoy for Antisemitism Ira] Forman.
The recorded conversation strikes a different tone from the explosive, expletive-laden transcript of a Feb. 21, 2024, International Executive Board meeting on which The Detroit News previously reported. That discussion had been spurred by Barofsky's phone call to Fain and a subsequent email from Barofsky to the IEB forwarding a note from the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit fighting antisemitism, regarding concern with a statement issued by a UAW local. Outside counsel from the UAW had replied, accusing Barofsky of overstepping his role.
Read the full transcripts of the audio call between Barofsky and Fain at the Detroit News.
Hyundai Using the Scandal to Union Bust
Following the various scandals within the UAW, organizing momentum stalled at foreign-owned auto plants around the United States. Many shop floor activists cite the top-down nature of the Fain Administration and their scandals as deterrents to organizing.
“At the end of the day, the entire purpose of this entire endeavor is to gain more control,” Toyota worker Randall Coggins of Ketucky told Payday last month. “We don't want to just cede control from one boss to another. We want to gain control, so you know, at the end of the day, it all depends on our solidarity, our ability to stand together, and regardless of what international does or international says, we're going to focus on us, and we're going to focus on the issues that are important to us.”
Now, Hyundai is using the scandal of Fain’s retaliatory demotion of Black UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock to dissuade Black workers in the South from trusting unions.
“The court-appointed Federal Monitor charged with oversight of the United Auto Workers union has found UAW leadership ‘deliberately trumped up false charges’ of wrongdoing against Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock,” wrote Hyundai on its anti-union website Team Built. Team Strong at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing in Alabama.
For more on the struggles of UAW activists in the South, check out our story “With or Without UAW Momentum, Southern Autoworker Activists Determined to Fight On”.
Harold Meyerson Argues Against Transparency in UAW Election
Finally, an editorial note. Yesterday Harold Meyerson wrote a piece for the American Prospect titled “Monitor Amok,” where he argued that the timing of Barofsky’s public reports were designed to help Stellantis UAW Vice President Rich Broyer in his race against Fain:
“The most telling aspect of the report isn’t really its conclusions; it’s its timing,” wrote Meyerson. “On June 17, Boyer announced he was running against Fain for the presidency of the union. On June 25, Barofsky released his report, detailing exclusively the 2023-2024 exchanges between Boyer and Fain and upholding Boyer’s side of the story.”
Not publishing the reports, in my opinion, would be a violation of the key principles of union democracy and journalism. If workers are voting to elect a union president in six weeks, shouldn’t they have as much information as possible to make a good choice?
Payday believes UAW rank-and-file should enjoy full information and transparency about their candidates. Yesterday, we wrote about how Drop Site News, Jacobin, and Labor Notes all failed to disclose financial and personal conflicts of interest in their attacks on the monitor.
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending comments, tips, complaints and cooking recipes to melk@paydayreport.com
