Detroit News: Marick Masters on UAW reputation
The expected retirement of UAW President Rory Gamble, confirmed Friday, potentially positions the troubled union to regain leadership stability as it faces six years of federal monitoring and a fraught transition to electrification of the global auto industry. Gamble, 65, will retire on Wednesday. The first African American president of the union, Gamble will leave at a time when the union is better off than when he stepped into the top role amid a years-long federal investigation into corruption that has resulted in the convictions of 11 former union officials, including Gamble's two predecessors. "Even though it has put aside the possibility of a government takeover," said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business, the union's "reputation has been damaged. And when it tries to organize any place across the country now, you can rest assured that its opponents are going to reach not too far back in the history books and pull out all the chapters of this scandal and publicize it to make it very difficult for them to have to overcome what has been a challenging public relations situation."
