Payday Report has learned that UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks has been forced out of the union amid a major corruption scandal. Multiple UAW staffers informed Payday Report that Brooks’ office at UAW’s Solidarity House had been cleared out and staff had been informed that he had left the union.
The departure of Brooks came as UAW President Shawn Fain was preparing to face re-election next year, and the scandals involving Brooks were seen by many as a liability for Fain’s re-election prospects. It also comes just days before UAW Federal Monitor Neil Barofsky is expected to release a new report into a series of troubling purges of dissident union leaders.
In addition to the removal of Brooks, Payday Report has learned that Fain has reinstated Rich Boyers as UAW Vice President for Stellantis.
Brooks’ push to remove Boyers as UAW Vice President and the demotion of UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock precipitated a massive scandal that led the UAW’s federal monitor to accuse the union of breaking the law.
Brooks had been a rising star within the labor movement, coming to prominence as a staffer for the Brooklyn-based publication Labor Notes. As a staffer at Labor Notes, Brook was a leading player in helping to elect Fain as president of the UAW in 2023.
Purges of Dissident Union Staffers Backfire
After Fain took office, Brooks became Fain’s right-hand man and drew criticism from staff for instituting a series of controversial, loyalty purges.
“ID those we can work with, move the program, ID those who need to be purged,” Brooks wrote in an email obtained by the Detroit Free Press in 2023.
In the union, Brooks gained a reputation for ruthlessly purging anyone seen as dissenting from Fain’s agenda. A court-ordered, confidential survey of several hundred UAW staffers in November showed that 51% of UAW staffers feared retaliation if they spoke about problems within the UAW.
In April, UAW’s Assistant Director of Communications Rachel Gumpert, a well-known communications professional, resigned from the union, citing a culture of top-down retaliation within the UAW.
“I cannot lose my integrity by continuing to work in a place where dissent is a termination worthy event,” wrote Gumpert in a facebook post published in late April.
Gumpert went on to denounce UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks and UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman. Prior to their appointments to UAW top positions, neither of them had held any top leadership positions in any union. (See Payday’s 2023 piece “UAW Challenger Fain Purges Top Allies in Favor of Brooklyn Consultants”)
Brooks and Furman have become larger-than-life influencers in the labor media world due to their connections, made while working at the Brooklyn-based Labor Notes. (In a sign of their influence, even The Wall Street Journal did a profile of the duo and their close associate, labor lawyer Benjamin Dictor, titled “Three Young Activists Who Never Worked in an Auto Factory Helped Deliver Huge Win for the UAW”)
“There are 2 primary sycophants - outsiders there for 2 years, who never were members and never held leadership roles at any union in their lives prior - who have taken the keys to the car from the elected President and hijacked this amazing union for personal gain, attention and ego,” wrote Gumpert about Brooks and Furman. “Now, they’ve driven it straight off a cliff.”
“The reason is inexperience, lack of intelligence, arrogance, and hubris,” wrote Gumpert. “It’s heartbreaking to see a righteous union with 100 years of righteous struggle be co-opted by two egomaniacs, who aren’t from it and have no real relationship to it or its membership.”
Brooks also engineered the demotion of UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock after she raised questions about a $500,000 no-bid contract being given to a DC firm with little experience in union campaigns.
However, her delays angered Furman and UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks, a native of Chattanooga, who had taken a lead role on the Volkswagen Campaign.
Brooks, who made $187,000-a-year as the UAW’s Chief of Staff according to federal records, had been angered that Mock refused to reimburse him for purchasing pizzas for Volkswagen workers since Brooks could not present a receipt.
Brooks was also upset that he was not approved by Mock for an enhanced corporate credit card that would have allowed him to charge up to $12,000 a month without union pre-approval. However, Brook’s position was not listed in federal guidelines as one of the positions eligible for the enhanced corporate credit card.
Both Brooks and Furman had garnered a reputation as “hatchet men” in the labor movement, willing to smear union dissidents. Court documents filed in Pittsburgh revealed that Brooks had been involved in an attempt to smear sexual assault whistleblowers while employed by the NewsGuild in 2020.
Emails, text messages, and sworn statements obtained by the federal monitor show that Furman and Brooks took a lead role in drafting the Special Compliance Report to oust Mock, who is Black. However, given the controversial nature of both Brooks and Furman, who are white, Fain got Region 1A Director Laura Dickerson, a Black woman, to present the report at the International Executive Board meeting as if it was an investigation that she personally undertook.
The UAW’s federal monitor, Neil Barofsky, found that the UAW President, Shawn Fain, intentionally misled the UAW’s rank-and-file about who authored the report.
“As further evidence of retaliatory intent, Fain made statements to the Monitor that confirmed his intent to deliberately conceal his commanding role in the effort to remove Mock’s departmental responsibilities,” wrote UAW’s federal monitor Neil Barofsky in court documents filed in federal court in Michigan yesterday.
Further attempting to conceal what occurred, the UAW refused to release the minutes of the executive board meeting to the rank-and-file as required by the UAW’s constitution.
In addition, for more than a year, the UAW refused to release documents to the federal monitor relating to Mock’s dismissal. After finally winning a court battle for more documents, Barofsky ordered the union to reinstate Mock with full responsibility for the departments that she previously oversaw.
In a report expected to be released tomorrow, Barofsky is also expected to order the UAW to reinstate Vice President for Stellantis RIch Boyers.
Following the release of documents that raised questions about the demotion of Mock in September, Marni Schrader resigned as UAW Compliance Director. The resignation came after UAW Federal Monitor Neil Barofsky accused Schrader of propping up false charges in retaliation against UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock in a successful effort to demote her.
Now, Brooks is the second top UAW staffer to take the fall for purges and punishment of dissidents within the UAW.
The moves to reinstate Boyers as UAW VP and dismiss Brooks as UAW Chief of Staff come as Fain prepares to run for re-election. The scandals around the demotion of Mock in her role as Secretary-Treasurer and removal of Broyer had hurt Fain.
Brooks has also overseen a series of dramatic and unexpected defeats of the organizing department of the UAW.
Two years ago, the UAW announced a massive effort to unionize non-union employers following the publicity it generated during the “Stand Up Strike.” So far, though, the UAW has failed to come up with much tanticipated 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, 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.
With the dismissal of Brooks as UAW Chief of Staff, Fain can claim that he’s heard the complaints of UAW staffers and members and changed things.
“Brooks was a liability for Fain,” one long-time UAW staffer told Payday Report on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “Now, Fain can go out and pick someone as Chief of Staff, who’s more politically popular and can help with his re-election bid. Brooks thought he could purge everyone, but, in the end, he got purged himself.”
Photo Credit: UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks (Chattanooga Times-Free Press)
