Detroit Free Press: Marick Masters on current state of UAW
The UAW will commission audits of operations at its headquarters in Detroit as well as the union's regional offices, political action committees and its remote resort and golf course in northern Lower Michigan, the union said Monday. The UAW announced a series of "stringent financial reforms," including details of the audits being conducted by Deloitte, in response to the ongoing corruption scandal that has shaken the faith of many members and led to the recent resignation in disgrace of former UAW President Gary Jones. The UAW announcement "is welcomed news, but it is long overdue,” said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University who specializes in labor. “This is something that should have been done from the very beginning rather than the stonewalling and continued denial you got from the UAW. It’s pretty serious when the prosecutor said they have been unimpressed with the level of change that the UAW made heretofore and the prosecutor is only halfway done with their investigation.”
Masters said the union still lacks internal checks and balances to hold the leadership responsible for any wrongdoing going forward. The UAW, he said, also must look at how it can remain viable in the future because “so far its record in organizing is dismal,” a reference to failure to unionize foreign-owned auto plants in the United States.
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