UAW election: Challenger for president gains early lead, Region 1 poised for new director

Early unofficial results in the United Auto Workers' first-ever direct elections of international officers confirmed that at least one runoff will occur, and showed numerous challengers to incumbent union officials ahead.

Vote tabulation began Tuesday. Turnout numbers released by the court-appointed monitor tasked with overseeing the union, as well as the election, showed that just 11% of UAW members cast ballots, signaling a lack of engagement among rank-and-file members even as a number of pressing issues face the Detroit-based union. A total of 106,790 ballots were returned out of the more than 1 million that were mailed out to active and retired members.

The International Executive Board, the union's top leadership, will have 14 members, including UAW president, secretary-treasurer, three vice presidents and nine regional directors.

Incumbent President Ray Curry heads the Curry Solidarity Team slate and is vying for election against four challengers: Shawn Fain, an international UAW administrative representative in the Stellantis Department who is running as part of the UAW Members United candidate slate; Mark "Gibby" Gibson, Detroit Diesel Corp. shop chairperson at Local 163 in Westland; Brian Keller, an employee at Stellantis NV's quality engineering center in Auburn Hills who ran for UAW president in 2018; and Will Lehman, a Pennsylvania-based Mack Trucks Inc. worker.

As of Wednesday, the monitor's office had provided unofficial results from UAW Regions 1 and 9, totaling 21,715 ballots, or roughly 20% of the total that were cast. Full preliminary results are expected within the next several days.

In the event a candidate doesn't earn more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will occur. Any needed runoffs would happen in January, with vote tabulation beginning in February.

The early results showed Fain with a narrow lead of approximately 39% to Curry's roughly 38.5%, while the other three candidates for president trailed.

In the secretary-treasurer race, early results showed Margaret Mock, a Members United candidate, ahead of incumbent Frank Stuglin, a Curry Solidarity Team candidate, roughly 61% to 39%.

In the race for three international vice president positions, eight candidates ran. Rich Boyer, Mike Booth and incumbent Chuck Browning were in the top three, according to the early unofficial results. Boyer and Booth are part of the Members United slate, while Browning is on the Curry Solidarity Team slate.

Region 1 appeared poised to have a new director, as Members United candidate LaShawn English had more than 52% of the vote to incumbent James Harris' 47%, according to the unofficial results. Harris is part of the Curry Solidarity Team.

"Based on the unofficial results, we are confident that LaShawn English will be the next Region 1 Director," Members United spokesperson Nathan Pensler said in a statement. "Her victory shows that UAW members are putting corruption behind us and are uniting to reverse decades of concessions."

The Curry Solidarity Team campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Members United is a slate of candidates backed by Unite All Workers for Democracy, or UAWD, a reform-focused caucus within the union that supported the implementation of direct elections.

“This is a pivotal moment for the UAW," Fain said in a statement this week. "Our membership desperately needs a change from decades of concessionary contracts in times of record profits, and from corrupt leadership. We need to restore our willingness to confront the companies — and get rid of the top-down, business union mentality. And return power to the membership."

The top two vote-getters in the race for regional director of Region 9 are headed to a runoff, according to the monitor's office, because none of the candidates received a majority of votes. The monitor's office said more information about the runoff will be published soon.

A number of the other races went uncontested. Running unopposed for regional director positions with the Curry Solidarity Team were Laura Dickerson returning to Taylor-based Region 1A, Steve Dawes returning to Flint-based Region 1D, Brandon Campbell running for Illinois-based Region 4, Mike Miller running for the new Region 6 in the western United States and Tim Smith running for Tennessee-based Region 8.

The election occurs as the UAW emerges from a landmark corruption scandal that involved former top leaders of the union paying and pocketing bribes, breaking labor laws and stealing members' dues money. A federal investigation resulted in 18 convictions and the implementation of a consent decree that put in place the monitor and required a referendum on direct elections.

Meanwhile, the union faces the accelerating transition to electric vehicles in the automotive industry, a shift that is likely to bring disruptions to the sector's manufacturing workforce as well as new plants the UAW would have to organize. The election also will determine who sits at the bargaining table starting next summer when a new round of contract talks with the Detroit automakers begins. And the union represents thousands of workers in other sectors, such as academia, who are are concerned about job security and economic issues, among other concerns.

Labor experts said weak turnout in the IEB election was not a surprise, pointing to generally low participation in union elections and activities and the fact that workers likely are focused on other issues in their lives. Additionally, some members reported difficulty getting their ballots.

Still, the election marked members' first chance to directly elect their top leaders. For roughly 70 years, that wasn't an option, as rank-and-file members elected delegates from their locals who in turn elected the union's top leaders at the UAW's quadrennial constitutional convention. But in last year's referendum, members voted in favor of a "one member, one vote" election system for IEB members with 64% support. Thirteen percent of the membership participated in the referendum.

jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @JGrzelewski

Staff Writer Breana Noble contributed.