The UAW long had a reputation as a “clean” union. The UAW voluntarily adopted an Ethical Practices Code back in the 1950’s and commissioned the Public Review Board to act as a check on the UAW’s power over members and locals. Unfortunately, the UAW was rocked by a series of parallel corruption scandals from the late 2010’s to present. In all, two UAW Presidents pleaded guilty, as did three UAW Vice Presidents, one Regional Director, six senior UAW representatives, the spouse of a UAW Vice President, and three company counterparts from FCA (Stellantis). Additionally, another UAW Vice President and the CEO of Stellantis were implicated but both died before investigations were complete. Prosecuting and defense attorneys alike cited a “culture of corruption” in court documents, and believed the corruption began earlier but was not investigated due to the statute of limitations.
What was notable about these scandals is that individuals at the highest levels of the UAW, and in different parts of the organization, simultaneously and independently engaged in illegal and unethical behavior.
The result of all this was the UAW found the best option available to it was to voluntarily agree to a court-approved Consent Agreement. The major implications of this mandated a referendum vote on 1M1V (One-Member-One Vote for IEB positions), and a federal Monitor for at least 6 years.
The UAW, for its part, has brought on significant reforms to curb further infractions of these types. Yet still, at the highest level, you will often still hear UAW officers blaming the past corruption on “bad apples” or individuals, in blatant denial of the role of organizational failures. This seems quite arrogant, especially considering the Monitor has at least three active investigations of IEB members going now, and the UAW has resorted to hiring a criminal defense attorney (Gurewitz & Raben, PLC) to represent them (UAW’s response to the 12th Monitor’s report).
Rather than summarize the breadth and depth of the corruption, it is better to look at the original document the federal prosecutor filed, which summarizes the corruption, pages 6-33:
https://www.uawtransparencyproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/the-uaw-deal.pdf