'Just getting started': UAW adds 10,000 members in 2022

The United Auto Workers bulked up its forces last year ahead of negotiations with Detroit's three automakers this summer, according to a filing with the U.S. Labor Department, adding more than 10,000 members to its ranks.

The Detroit-based union that represents autoworkers and employees from a swath of other industries — including agriculture, higher education, health care and gaming — reported 383,003 active members at the end of December, up 2.9% from 372,254 a year prior following a surge in union activity and organizing last year as workers demanded better pay and treatment in a competitive labor market.

The additions, however, still weren't enough to return the union to the more than 397,000 members it had at the end of 2020. UAW membership has ebbed and flowed over the last decade or so, reaching more than 430,000 members in 2017.

In a one-sentence statement on Tuesday, newly elected UAW President Shawn Fain simply said: "We're just getting started."

The rhetoric he and other new members of the International Executive Board used last week at the union's quadrennial bargaining convention point to an aggressive posture for the contract talks that will have implications for the treatment of workers at electric vehicle parts and assembly plants as well as product allocation and job security for workers making gas-powered vehicles, engines and transmissions.

The dissidents that have taken over the union following its first direct election of leaders have promised to fight for benefits lost for new hires during the Great Recession and for the union's reputation hampered by a years-long corruption scandal.

The union ended 2021 with $1.045 billion in net assets, down 3.8% from where it stood at the end of 2021. It brought in about $1.13 billion.

The union reported legal fees in 2022 for several ex-International Executive Board members stemming from the corruption investigation: $16,490 for former President Ray Curry, $127,854 for retired Vice President Cynthia Estrada, $7,705 for retired regional Director Ronald McInroy and $825 for former Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel. None of these individuals have been charged with anything.

Among other legal fees was $256,226 to the primary outside law firm that has handled the union's response to the federal corruption investigation. The Detroit News reported in 2020 that the UAW had paid more than $1.9 million since 2015 to the Chicago-based law firm Cotsirilos, Tighe, Streicker, Poulos & Campbell to oversee the union's response to the investigation. The total now is more than $3.2 million.

In response to the corruption, the UAW agreed in a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department to institute a court-appointed monitor for six years. Led by New York attorney Neal Barofsky, his employer, Jennifer & Block LLP, received $5.458 million for "monitor services." Law firm Crowell & Moring LLP, which has been working with the monitor on tasks like the election, received $1.342 million.

The election vendors, Election Systems and Software LLC and Merriman River Associates LLC, also were paid $1.654 million and $1.464 million, respectively, for their work in mailing, collecting and counting the ballots for the union's general election last fall. Additionally, Exiger LLC received $641,083 for services related to ethics compliance.

Meanwhile, Curry received $267,126 in 2022, including his $219,996 salary and other disbursements. Fain, an administrative representative in the Stellantis Department last year, received $160,130, including his $146,446 salary.

The union paid Vice President Chuck Browning $220,871, including a $198,046 salary. The other top IEB members who have retired or weren't reelected were Secretary-Treasurer Frank Stuglin who received $311,390 (including a $287,232 salary), Estrada with $403,300 (including a $252,639 salary) and Vice President Terry Dittes with $206,150 (including a $173,717 salary).

bnoble@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @BreanaCNoble