On Sunday, Bloomberg broke the story that a federal grand jury had been impaneled at the request of the Trump Administration to look into allegations of financial misconduct and self-enrichment by UAW President Shawn Fain. He is also expected to face possible federal indictments over retaliating against union leaders who reported financial misconduct and abuses of power within the union.
In response to news of the grand jury, Fain lashed out at the UAW Federal Monitor Neil Barofsky, who was appointed by former union-side labor lawyer and Clinton-appointed Judge David Lawson. He reports directly to Lawson, not Trump, whose administration impaneled the jury. In a sign of the independence of Barofsky’s oversight, the Trump Administration has issued subpoenas for all of Barofsky’s confidential matters in his monitorship of the UAW.
Barofsky, who is Jewish and was praised by progressives including Bill Moyers for his honesty in calling out the Obama Administration for selling out to Wall Street during the bailout, has been singled out for scorn by Fain. Fain has accused Barofsky of publishing reports critical of his leadership due to the union’s opposition to Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“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.
However, leaked transcripts of UAW executive board meetings obtained by Payday Report discredit Fain’s claims that Barofsky tried to interfere in the union’s positions on Gaza.
Not only did Barofsky not interfere in the UAW’s political process, but he openly denounced legal threats leveled by the ADL against the UAW due to their support of Gaza. He also denounced accusations that the UAW’s position on Gaza could be construed as “antisemitism”.
“I think [the ADL is uninformed. I think he is wrong,” said Barofsky of the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “I don't agree with it.”
Despite strong evidence that Barofsky did not interfere in the union’s politics, Fain, who is caught in a heated re-election battle, has attempted to implicate Barofsky in a Zionist conspiracy theory.
Much like how some supporters of Graham Platner tried to discredit critics of his abuse by labeling them as supporters of Zionism and other imperialist causes, Fain is trying to implicate Barofsky in a Zionist conspiracy theory. Fain is getting help in this from one of Platner’s chief defenders, Drop Site News’s Ryan Grim.
Drop Site News, Jacobin, & Labor Notes Fail to Disclose Financial & Personal Conflicts of Interests
Last week, Ryan Grim outraged many on the left when he attempted to discredit the rape allegations brought against Graham Platner. On his podcast, Grim had disclosed that Platner had been his bartender at his favorite dive bar, the Tune Inn in DC.
It wasn’t the first time that Grim faced accusations of smearing a critic without disclosing his deep financial and personal conflicts of interest.
Grim’s editor Nausicaa Renner is married to then-UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman, who was demoted and suspended from his job for his role in illegally retaliating against UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock.
However, in July 2024, when Grim first published an article at Drop Site News accusing Barofsky of being a Zionist, nowhere in the article did he mention that his editor was married to the UAW’s Communications Director. Given that Renner and Furman jointly own a $1.3 million home in Evanston, Illinois and have a child together, this was a clear financial and personal conflict of interest that Grim should have disclosed.
In 2024, Payday Report repeatedly asked Grim to disclose his editor’s marriage to Furman; Grim refused. Since then, Grim’s story, which was based on just one anonymous source, has been accepted as truth among many labor activists, who are completely unaware of Grim’s conflict of interests
In recent months, two other leading publications on the labor left, Jacobin and Labor Notes, have amplified Grim’s smear campaign. In both instances, these publications refused to disclose their own deep conflict of interest with the UAW.
Jacobin Doesn’t Disclose Labor Columnist Forced Out of UAW
In June, Alex Press of Jacobin wrote a piece repeating Grim’s Zionist conspiracy theory, claiming that “The origin of Barofsky’s escalating conflict with Fain had little to do with the financial corruption the monitor was tasked with investigating.”
Not disclosed in the Jacobin piece is the fact that Jacobin’s lead labor columnist Chris Brooks was forced to resign as the UAW’s Chief of Staff in December of 2025 Brooks’ resignation came after it was discovered that he had lied to union members while orchestrating a smear campaign against UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock, who questioned the financial oversight of the UAW.
In December of 2023, Mock angered Brooks and then-UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman and Brooks 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 and Brooks 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 had a reason to grant a special exception.
In their attempts to discredit Mock, who was Fain’s running mate four years ago, and demote her from several of her leadership positions, Brooks and Furman engineered charges against Mock, and were found to have lied to the union membership about their campaign.
In December of 2025, Brooks was forced to resign as UAW Chief of Staff and Furman was demoted from his job and suspended for two weeks without pay.
Despite the fact that it was covered by major publications including the Detroit Free Press, Reuters, and even Brooks’ hometown paper, The Chattanooga Times Free Press, Jacobin at no point informed its readers that its labor columnist had been forced out of the union after Barofsky proved that he had lied to union members.
(For more on the Jacobin scandal, read our February 2026 piece titled “Jacobin’s New Columnist Chris Brooks Doesn’t Disclose Corruption Charges that Led to His Ouster from UAW”)
Labor Notes Doesn’t Disclose Role in Financing Fain’s Re-Election Support Group
Around the same time that Jacobin began attacking Barofsky, Labor Notes’ Jane Slaughter joined in the fray. In her piece published on June 25th, Slaughter quotes Nick Licktick, a member of the UAW Member Action network, telling her, “The Monitor told Fain to support Israel. Fain told him to kick rocks. It’s clear this has all been personal since then.”
Much like Ryan Grim and Alex Press, Slaughter also refused to reveal her direct conflict of interest - she’s funding the UAW Member Action network, which is backing Fain.
As one of four directors of the Social Justice and Solidarity Fund, Slaughter is responsible for giving out nearly a million dollars in grants a year to labor organizing, including the UAW Member Action network
Nowhere in her Labor Notes piece quoting Nick Licktick does Slaughter reveal her role in helping bankroll Fain’s support network as he runs for re-election. Instead, Slaughter presents herself as a neutral and objective labor reporter.
The smear campaign launched by Drop Site News, Jacobin, and Labor Notes, all without revealing massive conflicts of interest, has proven effective in persuading the left that Fain is facing retaliation for the union’s opposition to Israel’s attacks. Activists regularly claim that Barofsky has a secret Zionist agenda, despite strong evidence contradicting this smear campaign
However, an examination of the transcripts of the UAW’s International Executive Board meetings discredits this Zionist conspiracy theory. Examining these records is crucial to understanding the truth of the crisis hitting the UAW.
(Full Disclosure: I feel it’s necessary to let readers know that I am an anti-Zionist Jew, who’s proud that my Dad, Gene Elk, as UE Director of Organization, helped lead efforts to get UE to become the first union to pass a BDS resolution back in 2015. I have long been critical of Zionists in the labor movement, and Payday has even lost subscribers as a result of our support of Palestinian liberation.)
UAW Blocked Release of Transcripts that Discredit Fain’s Zionist Conspiracy Theory
Under the UAW’s constitution, the UAW is supposed to release full transcripts of the UAW’s Executive Board meetings to all UAW members interested in reading them. However, for nearly two years, the UAW has refused to release the Executive Board meeting transcripts, including the controversial dispute between Fain and Barofsky.
In April of 2025, Payday ran a piece heavily criticizing the UAW for not releasing the transcripts. Fain refused to make the transcripts available at regional UAW offices. Instead, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock agreed to allow any UAW member to view the transcripts at UAW’s Detroit Headquarters, Solidarity House.
Fain, though, forbade UAW members from taking photos of the transcripts and posting them online. The UAW did, though, allow UAW members to take notes on what they saw at the UAW’s Detroit headquarters.
Some UAW members brought their laptops and typed out word-for-word what was said in the meetings. Payday checked these transcripts against one another and presents for the first time a record of what was said between Fain and Barofsky about Israel in the meeting.
UAW Faced Lawsuit Over Gaza & Lost Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Fighting Them
Following the lead of unions like United Electrical Workers (UE) and UFCW Local 3000, which called for a ceasefire in October of 2023, the UAW, became the largest union in the country to oppose Israel’s attack on Gaza in December of 2023. Some UAW locals even pushed for the union to back the Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
At the same time, the UAW also began to face intensive legal actions by Zionist legal campaigns against the UAW. UAW Local 2325, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), was forced to pay $315,000 to three Zionist union members over claims that they violated their rights as union members.
Given the legal cost of these lawsuits, the UAW’s Executive Board began to debate how they could limit the union’s legal liability. UAW leaders thought it would be good to hold a “teach in” to understand the issues better and how they could address the legal risk.
UAW Executive Board members asked Barofsky to help them obtain more information and asked if he could provide some speakers. Barofsky had been appointed as the monitor of the Credit Suisse lawsuit over the Swiss bank stealing money from Holocaust victims. He suggested that the UAW perhaps speak to Ira Forman, Obama’s former United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism.
In December 2023, Barofsky also received a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) hinting at legal action against the UAW over its opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza. Given UAW Executive Board members’ instruction to Barofsky to share information on this subject, Barofsky felt he was fulfilling his duty by forwarding the legal threat.
Labor law experts, including anti-Zionists like the University of St. Louis’s Mike Duff, say that Barofsky, as a lawyer, may have been justified in forwarding a potential legal threat from the ADL to the UAW.
“I think forwarding a letter from the ADL out of concern that the union risked violating the anti-BDS law (leaving questions of constitutionality to one side) arguably fell within the monitor’s legal-ethical duty,” said Duff.
In a February 2024 UAW Executive Board Meeting, Barofsky made it very clear that he thought the actions taken by the ADL were wrong.
However, UAW President Shawn Fain, who was facing probes over his retaliation against Mock and Boyer, used Barofsky’s forwarding of the ADL legal threat as evidence that Barofsky had a secret Zionist grudge against the UAW.
The UAW’s Hidden Transcripts Revealed
In the February 2024 executive board meeting, things exploded into a contentious, often profanity-laced, back-and-forth between Fain’s team and Barfosky.
Payday Report has printed the transcript of the exchanges with light annotations below. After UAW legal counsel Benjamin Dictor blasted Barofsky for forwarding the email, Barofsky took the floor to defend his actions:
BAROSKY: When we got the letter from the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, you know, including serious allegations one of the local unions had issued a statement that had had what I presume were wildly unintended con – potentially having unintended consequences, and it was the ADL's view that there was a risk that the words were being used by that local could contribute to the rising tide of anti-Semitism and violence it is, unfortunately, sweeping the country and its campuses. And so when we received that, we took it very seriously, in part because of who it was that was making the allegation: the Anti-Defamation League.
You know, our understanding, our view, is the ADL is an organization that's been around for more than 100 years. It is a – ,you know, it is an important civil rights organization in this country. It's the Jewish NAACP is how it's been described to me and is my perception of it.
Note, many organizations have criticized the ADL for conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism. However, Barofsky told UAW leaders that he did not feel the union was engaged in anything antisemitic:
BAROFSKY: And so frankly when we got this, we treated it with what we believe that it was a serious thing; that a local had issued a statement that again, advertently or inadvertently – seems to me almost certainly inadvertently, could contribute to some of those issues and these problems as reported by the ADL.
To me, it would be the equivalent, if after George Floyd was murdered and a local issued a statement and we got a letter from a third-party hotline from the NAACP saying that local union statement could possibly contribute to fan the flames of racism that were tearing across the country in the aftermath of that, I would have done the exact same thing that I did here.
Barosky then added that he provided the UAW with this information after the UAW specifically asked one of Barofsky’s staffers, Ali, to forward in situations like this:
BARFOSKY: And so we thought, we discussed, and we thought it should go to the IEB, you know, for a couple of reasons. One is it the IEB has oversight over the local unions, that's our understanding. Secondly, it just seems like something that the board would want to know. And, you know, after the board enacted its own ceasefire statement – I was not at that meeting, but Ali was and he let me know that there was a sentiment within the room that perhaps additional information members of the board wanted to know, other perspectives to fill it out. And that was a small part.
The monitor then went on to explain how he had responded to a request from the UAW to come up with speakers for a teach-in:
BAROFSKY: Now, the second area that I understand that raised some concern was my call to Shawn shortly after the board issued its ceasefire statement. Again, I would like to share some context with that. I was not at that meeting, as I said. Where I was, actually, I was in Switzerland. And I was in Switzerland; this is all public record. I am overseeing an investigation of Credit Suisse's historical ties that were previously undisclosed to high level Nazis and what its role was in the lead up to World War II and the Holocaust, its role in providing financial services to the Nazi Regime, as well as any role that it may have played in the smuggling of Nazis out of Europe to Argentina in the aftermath of World War II.
The reason why I tell you that is that I am in Switzerland, and someone with whom I’ve built a relationship is a man named Ira Forman. And Ira Forman is an expert, a global expert, on anti-Semitism. Ira Forman was President Obama's special envoy against anti-Semitism when Barack Obama was president. He runs a center in Georgetown University, where he is a professor, that monitors anti-Semitism across the world. And he had seen the UAW’s statement and agreed, offered to talk with the UAW.
And when Ali shared his report out of that meeting to me, in which he reported that several members had concerns and wanted to have the ability to hear more and on other sides on this issue and that there was contemplated, I don't know what the word was, teach-in or it was contemplated that that was going to happen, I thought, wow, what a weird coincidence. I happened to be here in Switzerland with someone who can provide exactly that service and said to me that he'd be willing to talk to Shawn and to the IEB to share his perspective and some of the concerns that he had when reading the IEB’s statement calling for a ceasefire.
And so was within that context and with that motivation that I called Shawn, and I explained to Shawn that I was in Switzerland. I'm doing this work with Credit Suisse, and I work with this guy, Ira Forman; that I understood that the IEB was looking for another resource that – you know, that I had been informed by Ira and others who had reached out to me, again in my capacity of monitor informally, concerns about potential implications along the line. And so, once again, or this time would be in the first instance, I was trying to provide that information as is what we do when we are monitors. We provide information.
UAW President Shawn Fain then shot back at Barofsky in a tirade:
FAIN: On December 13th Mack Trucks voted their agreement down. On December 13th, I was in Pennsylvania and spent the day meeting with one of the locals and was meeting the next morning with the committee, with the members. And that night, you know, I get a phone call. When it says Neil Borofsky, naturally I answer because this is the guy that monitors for the UAW; it's pretty important that I answer that call.
And I guess we have a different recollection of what that call was about, because the first thing he said to me is, I'm not calling you as a Monitor, but at the end of the day you're still the monitor. That's like me calling a member saying I'm not calling you as the president; I'm still the president.
But, you know, the first thing you said to me was that you were calling me because you had concerns about my comments and they could be -- you knew what I meant, but my comments could be misconstrued as being anti-Semitic. That's what you said to me.
And when I started explaining to you what I meant by my comment, then your comment was, well, I guess it is anti-Semitic. I guess I wasn't misreading what he said. That is what you said to me. Shake your head all you want; it's what you said to me.
Barofsky then interrupts Fain to dispute that he ever called the UAW or Fain “antisemitic” for their views on Gaza:
BAROFSKY: Shawn –
FAIN: I’ve got the floor now, so let me continue.
BAROFSKY: Okay, but Shawn --
PRESIDENT FAIN: No, let me continue. That’s exactly what you said, trust me. I’m the guy on the receiving end.
BAROFSKY: I did not say that, I did not accuse you of being anti-Semitic, I don’t believe that you’re anti-Semitic. I would never --
FAIN: I have the floor. And your next statement to me was you wanted to tell me about your background and how your kids at school were being harassed and when you go to and from school and there were members, UAW members, with signs out there yelling and shouting as your kids were going to school. Did you not tell me that? Yes.
BAROFSKY: If you’re asking me, I will -- I didn’t want to recount this part of the conversation, but I will be happy to.
FAIN: Well, I do, because that’s what I heard. Then you went into discussion –
BAROFSKY: I’m sorry, Shawn, you asked me to answer a question. Now you’re not actually --
FAIN: Okay.
BAROFSKY: If you want me to answer the question, I told you about my background, like I just said, that I was in Switzerland. And then I told you about Ira Forman, and I told you about the concerns that were being raised. And your comment to me in response – and, again, I wasn't intending to do this, but your comment response was, I don't think that the Jews are suffering at all. I think that is bullshit. I don't think there's any suffering from the Jews. I think all the suffering here is on one side.
And I said in response, Shawn, I could tell you from my experience that that is not true. And I shared the anecdote about the fact that my kids have been harassed since October 7th with anti-Semitic language. And, yes, I described that protest with people holding UAW signs chanting hateful comments. And I said, hey, this is what these people are telling me. You were saying in response you thought it was bullshit. And so I was sharing with you a personal anecdote.
But to be very clear, I said to you -- I said to you that there was inadvertently that your statement might be perceived as contributing to all of this, because that is what Mr. Forman had said to me and others have said to me. And I said, I assume it was inadvertent. And you said to me, it was not inadvertent; I knew exactly what I was saying.
But I never said to you that I thought you were anti-Semitic. I don't think that you're anti-Semitic. I have no reason to think that you're anti-Semitic. It was a conversation about me wanting to provide perspective and information because the board. And if you heard that or perceived that, I'm really sorry that that happened. But I'm very careful in my wording, and I would never have said something like that, even if I did believe it, and I did not.
Fain then acknowledges that Barofsky did not accuse the UAW of antisemitism, but said that some could falsely misconstrue the UAW positions as antisemitic:
FAIN: I'm very careful with my wording when I'm talking to the Government Monitor too, although he's saying he's not the Monitor. But let me – I'm going to be really fucking clear here, because I said that's fucking bullshit when I talked to you, and it wasn't about Jews. It was about the fact that I said I have plenty – I have friends that are Jewish, and I have friends on both sides of this argument, and my – I took it as – your statement to me was my comments could be misconstrued as anti-Semitic. And you said, I know that wasn't your intention.
When I explained what the fuck I meant, then you said, well, maybe that is what you meant. That's exactly what you said. I know what I said, because I'm the guy on the receiving end and however you wanted to view it, brother, you are – ,you're the Monitor over us. You have a realm of power over us, so, yeah, it concerned me greatly. So, yes, when we got off that phone, and you did go into the diatribe about your kids in school being harassed and all that shit and people holding up the UAW signs. And then you went into your thing about offering Ira to come and speak.
So I had zero fucking interest at that point, because I didn't know what the hell to do but try to get off the call. So I got off the call, and yes, I called Legal and said, I just want to let you know what is happening. I don't know what the fuck to do.
So then I was told -- you know what, they called about it, they discussed it. They told me, let's just leave it alone, let it go and let's move on, so that's what I did.
And it pisses me off, because now when you're claiming this wasn't about opinions and shit, I know what I feel like your opinion is. But one of our locals, who is perfectly within our rights to take action, which they did, just like this board did, comes out and puts a statement out, and the ADL contacts you, which who gives a shit, we don't care. I couldn't give a damn what the ADL says. But even there, your comment to the ADL was, unfortunately, this is not in my jurisdiction. Not this is not my jurisdiction, your comment to them was, unfortunately this isn't in my jurisdiction.
And I don't give a shit about how you want to say this, and you can smile all that shit all you want to, it’s bullshit. And I'm sorry, but for me to see this any other way or perceive this any other way, don't blame Ben on this. You can blame me. I relayed to them what I heard, what was told to me and what happened since.
And honestly I don't give a shit, but I am not going to be harassed. I don't give a damn about what opinions people have of me. I will do what I know is right. And what's happening over there was atrocious. What happened on October 7th is atrocious, and what's happened since is atrocious. And at the end of the day it's like every other fucking war in this world, the working class and poor are paying the fucking price for the people at the top that are fighting over shit nobody else cares about.
That's what this is all about. That's my opinion if you want my opinion. And for anybody to ever fucking say I'm anti-Semitic, brother, I'll fight your ass in front of this building in a heartbeat. I do not fucking like that, and I don't appreciate it.
Barofsky then apologizes to Fain for smiling while they were debating:
BAROFSKY: I'm sorry I was smiling. I was just smiling because the idea that I would want to have jurisdiction over this or deeply care, I mean, honestly it's just off base. I don't want to have jurisdiction over this. And I've really, really never intended for you to take up my comments is suggesting that I thought that you were anti-Semitic.
Yes, I said again, because based on the conversations I had with third parties. And I'm sorry you don't give a fuck about what the ADL says. I feel like -- I'm surprised to hear that. I have -- maybe I have a different perception of the ADL and where they stand as a historical civil rights organization in this country than you do. But again, I feel terrible that you think I -- I never used the word anti-Semitic. I never used those words.
FAIN: What I do give a shit about is that you reached out to me back then because you had concern, but then you decided to email my board and out me and say you had a conversation with me when I didn't fucking tell them. So it makes it look like I'm holding something from this board, which I wasn't, but that's how it looked.
So you could have called me and said, hey, I got this, but you didn't. You chose to go directly to the board and email them and throw shit out about me and throw shit out about the local. So, you know, I don't know.
But I'm going to turn this over to Ben. Ben's had his hand up.
BAROFSKY: I really don't think I threw shit out about anyone. I didn't throw shit out about the local. I included the local's response, because again this was something to share with the IEB, because the IEB has jurisdiction over the local. And my reference frankly -- my reference in the fact that I previously brought to your attention that third parties had concern was not intended to throw shit at you.
I just obviously thought it was a courtesy to make reference to our previous conversation, and again it was obviously a mistake. You took it the wrong way. That's not what it was intended to be, to throw shit. I'm not interested in throwing shit at anyone. Like what would be my reason or justification of why I would want to throw shit? Again, I'm just doing my job of passing on information without any tail to it, without any follow-up, just simply sharing information.
Then, Benjamin Dictor took the floor to blast Barofsky for forwarding the letter from the ADL:
DICTOR: I'm very proud of my Jewish background, and I'm even prouder perhaps of the way the UAW has navigated this particularly sensitive issue. I despise anti-Semitism; I would never work for an anti-Semite or an anti-Semitic organization or an organization that fosters anti-Semitism.
The ADL is an interest group. They are an interest group. I'm sure you get any number of complaints, as you noted, from people who think that Sean Fain is an alien. But I assume -- I mean, I would be surprised if you haven't received any complaints through your hotline about the UAW endorsing Joe Biden. We've got plenty of members on the right, and we've got plenty of members on the left that are mad at that political decision.
And I'm sure that we're not going to get the IEB alerted every time members think that the IEB made a poor decision in its political endorsement, whether that's from people who are upset with the genocide in Gaza or people on the right who think that Donald Trump needs to come back to office for all of our sake.
Then, Barofsky responded that he may have been wrong in labeling the ADL as more than an interest group. He then promises not to bring up the issue of Gaza again:
BAROFSKY: We seem to be a little far afield here. Again, my intent here was not to in any way suggesting political outcomes for the UAW. I don't even know what political outcome it is that you (are) suggesting that I'm pushing for. I shared the information. My perception, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that the ADL is more than a special interest group; that it is a civil rights organization. I think there was a – and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I misunderstood that.
And I also had in context the fact that certain members of the board had stated that they wanted to hear that information, and that's why I called Shawn. And trust me, I deeply wish I hadn't done any of it at this point, because it was never my intent to create such an issue. It was just what I believed, what we believe, that we do all the time in sharing external information because the organization might want to hear it.
And typically, what I would normally expect – and, again, I feel terrible that there is this perception here. I feel terrible that Shawn thinks that I think that he is anti-Semitic. This is just not how I operate. It's just not within the four corners of what I do.
And so, look, I mean if you want me to say lesson learned, yeah, lesson learned. I won't bring information to the UAW board or Shawn’s attention in the future. That is unique. In other monitorships the board and the heads of the organization usually are very interested to get that type of information and to get access to it.
Barfosky then goes on to state he does not agree with the repeated implication by Dictor that he is somehow a Zionist and distances himself from a statement made by some members of his law firm denouncing the October 7th attack:
BAROFSKY I'm not going to engage with you or anyone else in this organization about my personal views on my law firm’s statement or what's happening in Gaza, unless somebody really wants to have that conversation with me. I'm happy to do it offline, I'd be happy to share with you my views. I think they're more nuanced, and I think they're very different from what folks presume them to be. Like everything, I'm sure with all of us, they evolve over time as we learn new facts and new things come up. And that's why I don't have anything to do with it, and that's why I don't want to have anything to do with it.
But really, the Board -- you know, wanted to hear my perspective on these issues. You've heard my perspective on these issues. I was trying to -- my initial call to Shawn, I was trying to respond to a need that had been expressed in the board for outside information. I thought it was happenstance that I happened to be with Ira Forman at the time and thought I would like to make that connection, and that's why I called him. And, obviously, things have gone south from there. And so, again, I don't know what more there is to necessarily say on this issue. I hope this has been helpful.
Afterward, then-UAW Region 9 District Director Daniel Vicente (Vincente unexpectedly resigned from office in 2025 amid various scandals) took the floor and repeatedly accused Barofsky of being a ZIonist:
VICENTE: For my role, as the director of Region 9, nothing about this conversation today has alleviated any of my concerns. Personally, I found the e-mail very troubling, shocking, matter of factly. And I am very concerned about your ability to take your personal opinions on things out of your decision-making process. You said something this morning that we could come to you with questions and concern(s), and mine is how do I make a report and raise a concern about you sitting in the role as Monitor.
BAROFSKY: What personal opinion have I advanced during this meeting that you're concerned about? What is my position -- what is my position on the ceasefire, because there's this implication and these statements that I have strong views on these issues and that I'm somehow going to be unfair to the union because of my personal views. And so that presumes that you know my personal views.
VICENTE: My concern isn’t your personal view. My concern is that you feel that it's appropriate to reach out to our democratically elected president to talk offline, somehow that that makes you not the monitor, and raise concerns with him. That's my concern.
BAROFSKY: We share information after a board meeting where there was an expressed -- an interest for a teach-in or to get information from people with other perspectives. I thought because I happen to be with someone who is a global expert on these issues to make an introduction, not to push it, not to require it, but to offer it. That's what we do as Monitor, is that we try to assist the organization and meet needs that were expressed during a board meeting.
If you don't think that I can do my job because I did that, then it is of course the union’s, you know, right to raise these concerns to whomever you would like to raise them to. If you're raising them to me, I'm giving you my response. I have no bias. I have no, you know, view. I will continue to conduct myself. And if you have any evidence or anything to suggest that I've done anything in my role as a Monitor in a way that was biased or tilted to one side or the other, I strongly encourage you to share that information, because I'm not aware of it existing, and I don't think that it does exist.
And, you know, I came into this job with very strong views on unions, being very, very pro union. I think -- you know I have all sorts of very strong personal views, and it does not impact the way that I do this job. Because my personal views on any issue are irrelevant when one is a Monitor. I am governed by the agreement between the parties and the best practices of Monitors in every context available. That's what drives me.
And I think that if you're going to suggest that I have a bias, I'd like you to know what your basis is for concluding that I have that bias, and I would like to know what actions that you perceive that I have taken that have been prejudicial to the union, unfairly harsh in my criticisms or anything else that you think is this alleged bias impacts. Because I respectfully don't think that there is anything there for you to point to.
VICENTE: I'll say we agree on one thing at least, your personal opinions are irrelevant.
BAROFSKY: Okay, agreed, agreed. But what that has to do with my bias, my alleged bias, I don't know.
Afterwards, the conversation moved on to other topics.
Do UAW Rank-and-File Deserve to Read All the UAW Transcripts?
With Fain facing a grand jury for credible scandals around his leadership, he’s leaned harder than ever into a persecution narrative against Barofsky to make himself a martyr, relying heavily on his narrative and the lack of access to transcripts for members and independent news outlets to review
A review of the UAW’s Executive Board transcripts presents a very different view of what happened between Fain and Barofsky. Why this Zionist conspiracy theory has been allowed to persist raises troubling questions about the editorial independence of some left-leaning media outlets.
Drop Site News, Jacobin, and Labor Notes all refused to disclose their massive personal and financial conflicts of interest with the UAW in their attempts to defend UAW President Shawn Fain.
Payday Report, though, believes that union members have the right to know honest and accurate information, especially during a union leadership election. If you have any information, you would like to share with Payday, you can contact me anonymously melk@paydayreport.com or (412) 613-8423.
