Detroit News: Marick Masters on expenses tied to UAW corruption scandal

The United Auto Workers kicked off 2022 with a full agenda: a constitutional convention, campaigns to organize new members amid the auto industry's transition to electric vehicles, a growing unionization movement in higher education, and continued efforts to restore the union's reputation amid a years-long corruption probe. Also looming are direct elections of international officers following a historic referendum to change the way the union picks its top leaders, and a new round of national contract talks with the Detroit Three automakers. Still, even as the union works to put the corruption scandal behind it, related expenses continued to add up in last year, according to a new federal filing by the union, with new legal expenditures for some of the UAW's top leaders, additional payments to an outside law firm hired to oversee the union's response to the investigation, and payments tied to the federal monitor charged with overseeing the union. “It’s hard to say what the full costs of this are, but it’s more than just the dollar cost," said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University's Mike Ilitch School of Business. “You have to ask yourself: how much of an improvement are we actually making in the operation of the union?” 

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