The U.S. Department of Justice opened a UAW Shawn Fain federal probe into allegations that Shawn Fain sought favors for his fiancee. On July 12, Fain said he was being unfairly targeted and vowed, "We are going to fight back hard," as the dispute moved into a six-way race for the UAW presidency.
Fain and Boyer
Fain blamed UAW Vice President Rich Boyer for feeding false allegations to the monitor and trying to use them to damage his campaign. In a statement distributed by his campaign, Fain said, "Let’s be clear about what’s going on here: Rich Boyer has fed the monitor false allegations about me and is now trying to weaponize these bogus allegations to steal the upcoming UAW election. He knows he can’t win a fair fight because he has no real platform to run on...."
He added, "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 also said he had retained a law firm to dispute the monitor’s claims against him.
Barofsky report
Neil Barofsky published a report in federal court about two weeks before the investigation became public. He wrote that, "The Monitor’s investigation substantiated the claim that President Fain acted improperly to obtain financial benefits for his fiancee, and that Vice President Boyer’s failure to approve the bonus may have contributed to Fain’s retaliatory action against him," and said punishment would be deferred, pending further consultation with the parties to the Consent Decree.
Barofsky’s report said the retaliation tied in part to Boyer’s refusal to approve bonuses at the Stellantis National Training Center, where Keesha McConaghie works as a financial analyst.
Stellantis Department dispute
The report also said Fain stripped Boyer of his duty overseeing the Stellantis Department in 2024. That department covers about 40,000 members who work for the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram family of companies, placing the dispute inside one of the union’s largest internal blocs.
Barofsky’s footnote said the matter would remain with the parties to the Consent Decree, which includes the DOJ and U.S. District Court in Detroit. For Fain, the immediate fight is now twofold: answering a federal probe while trying to keep the campaign from being defined by the monitor’s findings.
