One of the reasons I campaigned for and voted for Shawn Fain for President is that I was hoping for more transparency. As I write this in February 2026 (and updated May 2026), I am very disappointed.
First the good.
The Stand-Up Strike in the Fall of 2023.
It was great that President Fain had his Facebook Live broadcasts to the membership. This was the first time I remember, a UAW President ever speaking directly to the members in the mass media like this during bargaining. It was like the Japanese people listening to Emperor Hirohito’s voice for the first time! I believe these Facebook Live sessions helped members feel more engaged, and also helped turn the public on our side. No question, it was a good thing.
But at the same time, the bargaining updates were pretty sparse on details and the status of specific bargaining issues. There just wasn’t much actionable information passed along to members. I remember watching some of them and thinking that this is great public relations but I am not learning much about what is really going on. And further, although it was good for Big 3 workers, in a way it kind of alienated non-Big 3 workers, because Fain doesn’t do Facebook Lives for everyone else’s bargaining.
It was also good the UAW posted the whitebooks, or tentative agreements, online during the ratification process. But not all members at all locals had time to look at these before ratification voting. And it did not include all the memos and supplements and such that go along with it.
It is also good the UAW posted the supplements to the agreements online. I remember years ago trying to get copies of these at my local and couldn’t get them. But again, why post these for Big 3 workers but not everyone else? How does that make you feel if you are a member in a non-Big 3 unit? But still, it is hard to give Fain the credit for this, this was mandated in the Consent Decree (pages 5-6, part D.14).
That is about the end of the discussion about good transparency under Fain.
Now the bad.
Deleted Messages
When Shawn first started as President, he told everyone at Solidarity House to cooperate with the Monitor. And, not to delete any emails or text messages. But in the Monitor’s 12th Report Supplement, he shows that a whopping 123 incriminating messages that were relevant to his investigations were deleted from Shawn’s phone. 123 messages! What kind of corruption is Shawn hiding from the Monitor, and the members? Is this transparency? Innocent people don’t delete 123 text messages.
Financial Reports to Members.
Traditionally, the UAW has reported the International’s annual financial reports to members in Solidarity Magazine, which is available online on the UAW’s website. But no financial reports to members were made for 2022 and 2023 in Solidarity Magazine. Finally, the 2024 financial report was put into the Fall 2025 issue.
Of course, one could argue it should be the Secretary-Treasurer’s responsibility to report finances to members, although I was unable to find this in the Constitution. But the President, not Secretary-Treasurer, has control of the communications department, which handles Solidarity Magazine. There is no reason the members shouldn’t have the 2022 and 2023 financial reports in Solidarity Magazine, or elsewhere on the UAW’s website. These reports are done, and have been for a long time.
It is now May 2026 and I don’t see any 2025 Financial Report yet…
Unrealized Appreciation on Investments
I was given access, as one of my Local’s Trustees, to LUIS in 2022. I was able to log in and download a recent International Trustee’s Report. The first time I read it I couldn’t believe it. The UAW had about $340 million in unrealized appreciation on investments in the Strike Trust that it was not reporting to members in the annual financial reports in Solidarity Magazine. Later, I found this was up to $413 million in December 2022 (International Trustee Report, external auditor’s report, page 14, Note 4). Over the time since, I have discussed this at length with many members. One of those discussions led indirectly to an article in The Intercept magazine, while Shawn Fain was still just a candidate for President, where he is quoted:
“This is just another example of an out of touch International Executive Board that places its own agenda above that of the membership,” Shawn Fain, the Members United candidate for president, told The Intercept in response to information in the internal audit. “While the Curry Administration claims to be transparent, I find it shameful that the membership has been misled as to the actual value of the strike fund, and that our leadership has severely underreported that value.”
—Just How Much is the UAW Strike Fund Worth? The Intercept, November 16, 2022
The UAW uses a modified cash accounting system, and apparently is not legally required to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). And the value of the unrealized appreciation does change from day to day. But still, I believe this is important to report financial assets of this magnitude to members when the IEB is able to cash in or churn investments at will to get an infusion to the general fund for operations. And further, depending on your interpretation, it might distort the actual value of the Strike Fund (and when the $850 million threshold is reached to trigger the lower dues rate). As the quote above attests, Candidate Fain believed this was important too. But President Fain does not, because this is still not being reported to members.
At the May 13, 2025 meeting, the President (Fain) and Secretary-Treasurer (Mock) agreed that the unrealized appreciation on investments is important enough that it will now be reported regularly to the IEB and the Investment Advisory Committee of the IEB. But still not in financial reports to the members. Is that transparency?
International Trustee Reports
Article 51, Section 1 of our Constitution requires the International Trustees to report semi-annual audits to Local Unions “as soon as completed.” The way this has been done in recent years is through the LUIS computer system. I no longer have access to LUIS as my term as local trustee ended, but I asked about two weeks ago, and it turns out the last Int’l Trustee Report available on LUIS is from June 2022. That is 3-1/2 years ago! Who has responsibility for the LUIS system? The President’s Office.
Update: I had been checking periodically for them and on April 13, 2026, I saw they were up to date through June 2025.
Overdue International Executive Board Meeting Minutes
Our Constitution, Article 12, Section 19, requires the IEB to make available “verbatim minutes” of all IEB meetings to members. Further, summaries of the IEB meetings are to be made available to locals (via LUIS). The Public Review Board, in my previous case #1866, requires these to be made available no later than two weeks prior to the next IEB meeting.
As of mid-February 2026, the latest IEB meeting minutes available to members is May 2025. I should be able to inspect the August and November 2025 meeting minutes, but these are not available to me. When I asked why I can’t see them, I was told they are done and in the President’s Office waiting for approval. But these delays with the Fain administration are not new.
So here is a timeline (the timeline after my PRB Case #1866, which was settled in July 2023) of my saga to inspect these minutes. This timeline includes the complaint I filed in January 2025 when the IEB was 566 days overdue with producing IEB meeting minutes and summaries (President Fain had been sworn in as President 662 days at this point):
After my PRB case (#1866) ruling (summer 2023), I laid low for a while, I figured I’d let other activists learn the ropes of IEB meeting minutes.
3/3/24 I made an ethics complaint that some other members that I knew were not getting timely IEB meeting summaries and minutes.
4/25/24 The Ethics Office responded.
7/13/24 Still no new IEB meeting minutes, 4 months after my ethics complaint. So I made a complaint to the Monitor.
7/19/24 Still no new IEB meeting minutes. So I filed another ethics complaint about it!
7/23/24 I asked Ethics to tell me what the process is for IEB meeting minutes (so I knew where to place blame). Their response.
9/3/24 I filed my own request to inspect IEB meeting minutes.
I went in to Region 1 on Wednesday afternoons and inspected IEB meeting minutes. I was only given access to the following dates:
Feb 21, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 23, 2023
Mar 15, 2023
Mar 20, 2023
May 8, 2023
Jun 6, 2023
Jun 7, 2023
Jun 8, 2023
Jun 30, 2023
Then the stream dried up in late October 2024. Again, this is well over a year delay to get some of the IEB meeting minutes, even though I filed an ethics complaint about it that was discussed with relevant departments 6 months earlier.
11/22/24 I sent an updated request to inspect IEB meeting minutes to the Secretary-Treasurer.
1/16/25 I was running out of patience with these unconstitutional delays and filed another complaint/appeal to IEB, that the latest IEB meeting minutes I was able to inspect was 566 days prior. This is when Fain had been sworn in as President 662 days at this point.
2/10/25 Fain responded to my complaint, instructing the Secretary-Treasurer to investigate, even though the IEB meeting minutes I asked for had already been approved through the Secretary-Treasurer’s Office and were sitting in the President’s Office when he wrote this.
3/21/25 Secretary-Treasurer Mock’s response.
5/9/2025 Was finally informed by the Secretary-Treasurer’s Office that more IEB meeting minutes are available for me to inspect. Yeah!
I spent most of the summer going in one day per week to inspect IEB meeting minutes and other related documents:
Feb 20, 2024
Feb 21, 2024
Nov 13, 2024
Aug 10, 2023
Oct 17, 2023
Sep 14, 2023
Feb 14, 1996
Feb 10, 2025
Feb 20, 2025
Feb 18, 2025
Feb 19, 2025
Nov 28, 2023
Nov 29, 2023
Nov 30, 2023
May 1, 2024
7/10/2025 As I was inspecting these IEB meeting minutes, I noticed a few problems (noted in below section), and filed another complaint to the Public Review Board, which I amended and then amended again. As of now (5/20/2026), 10 months later, the President’s Office still has not forwarded my complaint to the Public Review Board. Kris Harrison (TOP AA who is handling this case) has told me verbally four times he is “working on it”, like a cat that can’t claw its way out of a wet paper bag.
11/10/2025 I asked the inspect the August 2025 IEB meeting minutes, and was told they aren’t available.
2/12/2026 The August and November 2025 minutes are still not available, in violation of the Public Review Board’s order in my previous case (#1866). Nor are IEB meeting summaries or Int’l Trustee Reports since June 2022 available.
2/16/2026 I sent a new complaint to the PRB, Ethics Officer, and the Monitor about this. Shortly after, I spoke on the phone with one of Shawn’s TOP AA’s, Kris Harrison, who told me the minutes would be coming “soon” and that he will answer my July 2025 complaint “soon”.
3/11/2026 Still no IEB meeting minutes for me. But I did get a response from the Monitor, telling me that his understanding is these were ready two weeks ago on February 27.
3/16/2026 I just spoke on the phone with the Secretary-Treasurer’s Office, I was told that all of 2025 IEB meeting minutes are ready. Whew. I made an appointment for Thursday March 19th and was able to inspect them then.
5/20/2026 I checked and on LUIS, the latest IEB meeting summaries that are available is August 2025. At this point, all meeting summaries through March 2026 should be on LUIS, per the PRB’s order in PRB Case #1866 and the UAW Constitution Article 12 Section 19, but they are not. So I sent another complaint tot he Ethics Officer, Public Review Board, and Monitor.
The Public Review Board in case #1866 ruled in July 2023: “Going forward, the International Union shall make meeting summaries and verbatim minutes available in the manner directed under Article 12, §19 no later than two weeks prior to the next IEB meeting.”
“…In addition, the Secretary-Treasurer shall prepare a summary of official International Executive Board action after each International Executive Board Meeting, which shall be sent to each Local Union.” (UAW Constitution, Article 12, Section 19).
In the three years Shawn Fain has been President, there has not been a single time the UAW has been compliant with getting the IEB meeting minutes and summaries out on time. Not once. Never. Is this transparency, or contempt for the membership? Or rank incompetence as a leader?
International Executive Board Meeting Minutes – Off Record
There are other problems with the IEB meeting minutes besides the indefensible delays.
Constitutionally (Article 12, Section 19), the IEB can go off-record during meetings if 7/8 of the members present vote to go off-record. But still, the PRB has ruled in my previous case (#1866) that they must “…indicate the topic(s) addressed during any off-the-record discussion”. The IEB meeting minutes since Fain was sworn in include many redactions, without indicating what they are redacting. What are they redacting and why?
Even when the IEB does go off-record, they aren’t supposed to “take action” (UAW Constitution, Article 12, section 19) off record. But the IEB under Fain has regularly been taking action outside of IEB meetings. For example, the decision was made in August 2023 to cash in hundreds of millions of dollars in investments outside of meetings via email. There was no opportunity for IEB members to follow Roberts Rules, ask questions, discuss alternatives, or make amendments. No wonder there was confusion about what they were voting on and it’s implication. As a result of this confusion, now the UAW is missing $80 million dollars, the Monitor is investigating, and so is the US House of Representatives. And, of course, no record of any of this in the meeting minutes for members to know what is going on.
In every regular IEB meeting, there is a legal report. It isn’t uncommon for the IEB to go off-record during these reports. But under Fain, the IEB goes off-record for the entire legal report. In the past, only part of the legal reports would typically be off-record. For example, since the feds starting investigating the UAW in mid-2010’s, the legal report would start with a summary of when the investigations started, etc. Then they would go off-record when they started discussing specific details. The way it is now, with the entire legal report off-record, members have no idea what legal challenges the UAW faces. I don’t think that is good at all.
Update: I had been complaining about (it is in my July 2025 complaint to the PRB) and asking for access to these so-called “Board Polls” for a long time. Nine months later, I went in to Solidarity House to read IEB meeting minutes on April 15, 2026, and Austin Bearinger in the Secretary-Treasurer’s Office had printed out a pile of these board polls from the time Fain was sworn in to sometime in 2025. He promised me a complete set to date when I come in the next week. I was able to read through 23 of them to finish 2023 and 2024. Most of these are for fairly routine and trivial matters, such as approving routine small donation requests of several thousand dollars. Others have big implications, such Constitutional Interpretations, or the one where they liquidated $345 million in the Strike Trust without any discussion. Or approved early retirement deals for staff. I gotta give Austin Bearinger some credit here, he not only printed all those emails, but he also summarized them into an excel worksheet, with the date, who proposed it, vote count, and the text of the proposal itself. Thank you Austin!
I really hope they stop doing these board polls. The IEB is not supposed to “take action” outside of Board meetings, there is no opportunity for discussion, questions, clarification, amendments, etc. And by presenting proposals via “board polls”, it takes a majority of IEB members to call for a special meeting to discuss a board poll proposal. This makes these board polls some kind of “shadow docket” because otherwise, if the proposal was brought up in a meeting, it would take 2/3 vote of the IEB to “call the question” and stop discussion and hold a vote.
I’d like to bring up a couple of quotes from some IEB members about it:
“Board polls don’t necessarily facilitate discussion on the motion…” –R4 Director Brandon Campbell, email to IEB on 3/3/25, 12:21pm.
“I just don’t believe we should be having these kind of board polls about traveling & expenses through an email.. or any other policies change.. this is an important discussion that should be had face-to-face or on a teams meeting.” –R8 Director Tim Smith email to IEB on 3/3/25
Regardless, I hope they put Austin’s spreadsheet summary of these board polls in LUIS so members can have better access to what has been going on.
UAW Convention Proceedings
The UAW had its Constitutional Convention in June 2022. the Special Bargaining Convention was in March 2023. Yet the proceedings were not available until the summer of 2025, when they were posted as pdf’s on the UAW’s website. These are simply the court reporter’s transcripts, they did not require any editing. How difficult is it to make a pdf of these transcripts and post them online? If President Fain believed transparency to members is important, these wouldn’t have taken so long.