This week, Jacobin made a shocking announcement: Chris Brooks, a disgraced UAW official who was forced out of the union over illegal conduct and corruption charges, would begin as a new labor columnist for the publication. “Very happy to have a labor organizer and strategist as a columnist for Jacobin,” wrote Jacobin editor Micah Uetricht on twitter
The hiring was certainly unusual for any publication attempting to maintain journalistic credibility with its readers. Not only was Brooks ousted from office, but court documents filed in federal court revealed that he repeatedly lied to the union members about efforts to purge union democracy activists.
However, nowhere in Brooks’ inaugural column titled “Four Lessons From the UAW’s Turn Toward Class Struggle” is his ouster from the UAW over his illegal conduct ever mentioned. This, even though it was covered by major publications including the Detroit Free Press, Reuters, and even Brook’s hometown paper, The Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Instead, Jacobin gave a platform to a corrupt union official to repair his legacy without ever having to address the very serious allegations of corruption, dishonesty, and retaliation, or the violation of federal law that forced him out of union office. A review of Brooks’ record of dishonesty and lying to union members shows that he is someone whose reputation would damage the credibility of any publication.
In his column for Jacobin, Brooks argues for instilling "discipline" and firing any union activists who disagree with Shawn Fain's decisions. Brooks writes that “The US Supreme Court in Finnegan v. Leu explicitly ruled that the right of union leaders to remove staff and appoint others (absent a collective bargaining agreement or individual employment contract that states otherwise) who they believe can best effectuate the will of the membership is a fundamental principle of union democracy.”
However, Brooks didn’t target appointed union staffers from the old UAW regime. Instead, he targeted President Fain’s running mates, who had been elected to serve alongside him: UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and UAW Vice President Rich Broyers.
Indeed, as Brooks concedes in his piece, there was very little purging of the old guard of the UAW as Fain was able to make deals with the union careerists. Instead, the illegal and duplicitous efforts of Brooks targeted committed union democracy activists, who insisted that Fain live up to the ideals of union democracy on which he was elected.
Brooks Lied About Engineering Purge of Union Democracy Activists
In 2020, the UAW entered into a federal consent decree when more than a dozen top UAW officers, including two former UAW presidents, Dennis Williams and Gary Jones, were convicted of embezzling from the union and taking bribes from employers.
To settle federal charges, the UAW agreed to a consent decree that included reforms to be overseen by federal Judge David Lawson, a former union-side labor lawyer appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 2000. Lawson appointed Neil Barofsky as the federal monitor overseeing the consent decree and providing status updates to the court. Barofsky is a progressive watchdog who won accolades for taking on Wall Street and the Obama Administration during the bailout.
As part of the consent decree, the UAW agreed to require all major contracts issued by the union go through an open-bid process, in which at least three contractors must bid before a contract is approved. For years, union members had complained that the lack of an open-bid process had led to them being ripped off, as UAW officers awarded contracts to their political cronies, not based on merit.
As Secretary-Treasurer, Margaret Mock repeatedly fought with UAW President Shawn Fain as he attempted to side-step the open-bid reforms and reward his political cronies.
Violating Consent Decree to Give $500,000 No-Bid Contract to DC Media Firm
In December of 2023, she angered UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman by refusing to award a $500,000 no-bid contract to a politically connected DC consulting firm for billboards and media buys to support union organizing at Volkswagen in Chattanooga.
Given that the no-bid contract was for $500,000, a significant expenditure for any union, Mock denied the request until more dialogue within the union could be had about whether the expenditure should be approved.
Union organizers debated whether spending $500,000 was an effective use of organizing resources, especially given that the no-bid contract was awarded to a media firm, Conexión, with little experience in union organizing. The firm was founded by Adrian Saenz, who served as the White House’s Director of Public Engagement under President Biden, and was staffed primarily by DC-based Democratic Party officials.
Furman also grew frustrated with Mock after she refused to approve a no-bid contract for Feldman Strategies, a communications firm founded by DC political operative Andrew Feldman. The federal consent decree was very clear that the union should solicit at least three bids before approving any contract, unless the union found a reason to grant a special exception.
Eventually, after a six-week debate within the union, both no-bid contracts were approved in February.
Fabricating the UAW Compliance Director’s Report
In February of 2024, UAW President Shawn Fain led an effort to remove Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock from her duties overseeing 11 departments within the UAW. To justify Mock’s demotion, then-UAW Compliance Director Maria Schroeder prepared a report accusing Mock of politicizing the expenditure approval process. The report from Schroeder persuaded the UAW International Executive Board to vote to demote Mock.
However, the federal monitor found that the report contained multiple fabrications. Mock was not even informed of the charges against her before being called into the executive board’s meeting.
The compliance director’s report, fabricated by Brooks and Furman, completely blindsided Mock, “who had received no advance notice that these allegations were to be levied against her at the IEB meeting and was not allowed to participate in the investigation into her that resulted in the Report,” wrote UAW federal monitor Neil Barofsky.
Schroeder claimed that her report, which was used to justify Mock’s demotion, was entirely independent with no input from UAW President Shawn Fain or his top staff. However, an investigation by federal monitor Neil Barofsky found that hundreds of text messages between top UAW staffers had been deleted and that UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks had lied to the federal monitor, a serious and illegal offense.
In an attempt to hide their work from the union’s membership, the federal monitor accused UAW President Shawn Fain of deleting at least 123 text messages from his phone during the period when union officials were orchestrating the demotion of Margaret Mock.
Even more shocking, all text messages on UAW Compliance Director Marin Schroeder's phone were deleted from the period between November 25, 2023, and March 23, 2024, when the plan to remove Mock was hatched.
According to the monitor’s report, neither Schroeder nor Fain could explain why so many of their text messages had been deleted. At one point, Fain told the federal monitor that someone might have broken into his office and deleted the messages.
However, not all UAW staffers deleted their messages. UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks and former UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman continued congratulating one another in writing for secretly orchestrating the illegal demotion of Mock.
According to the monitor’s report released in December, “text messages between Brooks and Communications Director Jonah Furman showing that they (a) had editorial control over the Special Compliance Report, (b) used that control to insert false and inflammatory allegations against Mock that Fain later used to justify the retaliation against her.”
After their plan to demote Mock was successfully executed in February, Brooks texted Furman to brag about it, according to the federal monitor’s report released in December.
“Can I just take a moment and say: my strategy was flawless this week. Like everything went perfectly to plan,” texted Brooks. “It feels really good. Like how [I] imagine it feels to epically dunk on another player in basketball.”
In December, as part of a deal to avoid legal charges just after the federal monitor’s report was released, Brooks was forced to resign from the UAW. Union democracy activists are also leading an effort to bar Brooks from the UAW due to his conduct.
Union Organizing Suffered from Brooks’ Purges
In Brooks’ piece for Jacobin, he offers advice to organizers on how to win. However, interviews with UAW organizers reveal that the purges he instituted hurt the tremendous union organizing momentum that the union had following the “Stand Up Strike” and successful union organizing drive at Volkswagen in Chattanooga.
Brooks has also overseen a series of dramatic and unexpected defeats for the UAW's organizing department.
Two years ago, the UAW announced a massive effort to unionize non-union employers following the publicity generated during the “Stand Up Strike.” So far, though, the UAW has failed to deliver much-anticipated victories after winning at Chattanooga Volkswagen in 2024, with 72% of workers voting in favor of the union.
In May of 2024, after filing for a union election with more than 70% of workers signed up at Mercedes in Alabama, the UAW lost the election by a margin of 44%-56%. In August, the UAW won a narrow vote at BlueOval Kentucky by a margin of 526-515, with 41 ballots still currently being challenged, a margin that many union organizers said was too narrow at a time when other unions are winning at similar manufacturing plants by much larger margins.
The recent lopsided, more than 2-1, defeat of the UAW at a Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, an employer where two other unions won easily earlier in the year, raises troubling questions about what is happening inside the UAW. The union has faced massive turmoil and infighting, leading many veteran organizers to leave, only to be replaced by much younger, inexperienced organizers.
“They value loyalty above all else, and that’s why they are losing,” one UAW organizer told Payday Report.
UAW organizers have reported that union busters have used Brooks's role to lie to union members and undermine their organizing efforts.
Jacobin Gaslights the UAW’s Rank-and-File
Even though Brooks’ illegal and dishonest conduct was widely covered in major publications across the United States, the left press, other than Payday Report, hasn’t written a single article about what occurred. For years, many in the labor press had praised Brooks, and for those invested in hero-worshipping Chris Brooks, it would be embarrassing to admit they were wrong.
Instead, Jacobin has given the disgraced union official a column to gaslight the UAW’s rank-and-file because, ultimately, it would hurt Jacobin’s reputation to admit that they were wrong. When reached for comment, Jacobin did not respond.
So far, Brooks’ attempt to gaslight and refuse to address his illegal conduct that led to his ouster from the UAW appears to be working.
“This from [Chris Brooks] is an incredibly lucid and honest analysis of his experience helping transform the UAW,” wrote noted Rutgers labor studies professor Eric Blanc on Twitter. “Lots of urgent lessons here for the rest of organized labor.”
Indeed, there are many lessons to be learned from Brooks’ tenure at the UAW about how top-down control and purges undermine union democracy movements. But so far, publications like Jacobin have been unwilling to have an honest conversation about the problems that have stifled union organizing within the UAW.
