It has now been more than nine months since a federal judge ruled that the Department of Labor (DOL) acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in dismissing complaints of systematic voter suppression in the 2022-23 United Auto Workers (UAW) national elections. Yet under first Biden and now Trump, the Department of Labor has refused to issue any response, in defiance of the court’s order.
In June 2024, Judge David Lawson ordered the Department of Labor to reconsider the complaints filed by Mack Trucks worker and socialist UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman, who charged that the 2022 election—which brought current president Shawn Fain into office—had been fundamentally undemocratic.
Lawson’s ruling was a sweeping rebuke of the Biden administration’s attempt to whitewash an election in which fewer than 10 percent of eligible UAW members participated—the lowest turnout for a national union election in US history. Lawson characterized the Justice Department’s reasoning in rejecting Lehman’s appeal as “grounded in an arbitrary and capricious construction of the Election Rules that is not supported by their plain text or the prevailing case law.”
Despite the court’s order, the Biden administration took no action during the remainder of its seven months in office, and the Trump administration has continued the DOL’s policy of refusing to abide by the court order.
On January 27, 2025, Lehman’s attorney wrote to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), requesting an update on the case, asking, “When can we anticipate the Department’s findings will be made available?” The agency responded four days later, stating only: “OLMS is still actively working on the investigation.”
After receiving no further updates, Lehman’s attorney, Eric Lee, sent another email on February 12, expressing concern over the extended delay in responding to Lawson’s ruling and stating it had become “objectively unreasonable.”
Lee’s February email also pointed to the broader political context in which the delay is taking place:
My client Will Lehman and I are naturally concerned about the actions Elon Musk is taking to disrupt the work of the Department of Labor.
First, we would like to inquire whether Mr. Lehman’s case will be delayed as a result of the actions of Mr. Musk and his associates in “DOGE.” As you know, Mr. Lehman’s case was remanded to the Secretary of Labor for further proceedings on June 25, 2024. That order was entered after Mr. Lehman prevailed in federal court on a challenge to the Department of Labor’s prior handling of his case. It is now February 12, 2025. We are concerned that the duration of this delay is already objectively unreasonable, and we are naturally concerned about the prejudicial impact of further delays.
Second, we would like to confirm that no information about the case or the investigation will be disclosed to Mr. Musk or any “DOGE” representative. We understand that a temporary order has [been] issued blocking access to Labor Department data by such individuals, and we think Mr. Lehman’s case would be subject to that order as well. It is our position that the whole enterprise of Mr. Musk and his accomplices is categorically illegal, and that no data of any kind relating to Mr. Lehman’s case should be disclosed to Mr. Musk or “DOGE.” If any such data is disclosed, we would request to be informed so that we can seek appropriate relief.
The DOL has not responded in the nearly two months since this email was sent.
The UAW bureaucracy responded with open hostility to Lehman’s campaign, which won widespread support from the rank and file. Lehman, who called for the abolition of the bureaucracy and the transfer of power to the rank and file, received nearly 5,000 votes despite the systematic efforts to disenfranchise workers.
Out of 1.1 million eligible members, only 104,776 ballots were cast. Shawn Fain, now president of the union, was “elected” with only 6 percent of the eligible vote and as little as 3 percent of the vote from rank-and-file workers.
Fain, who was promoted as a “reformer,” has since presided over an escalating assault on autoworkers. In 2023, the UAW organized fraudulent “stand-up strikes” among Big Three autoworkers, which left the overwhelming majority of workers on the job. The strikes were shut down on the basis of contracts that paved the way for mass layoffs.
At the same time, Fain’s administration has functioned ever more openly as a political appendage of the state. During the 2024 election, Fain backed Biden and then Harris, championing the UAW as the “arsenal of democracy,” amid the genocide in Gaza and the attacks on student protesters.
With the election of Trump, Fain has moved to align himself with the fascistic government of oligarchs. In recent weeks, Fain has praised Trump’s tariffs, economic nationalism and protectionist policies, while making the mildest criticisms of the administration’s plans to deport millions, strip workers of collective bargaining rights, and criminalize dissent. The UAW has also done nothing to defend students—many of them UAW members—who are being targeted for protesting the genocide in Gaza.
The recent financial filings by the UAW expose the social basis of the bureaucracy’s alignment with the ruling class against workers. The union’s assets rose to over $1.1 billion in 2024. While the union paid out only $11 million in strike benefits last year, it spent nearly 10 times that—$109.9 million—on salaries and disbursements for its bloated apparatus centered at Solidarity House. The top 15 officials alone received $3.2 million, including $274,407 for President Fain.
Lehman’s campaign gave voice to a widespread desire for rank-and-file control and a growing political radicalization among the working class. It demanded the dismantling of the bureaucracy, the defense of workers’ democratic rights, and the building of a political movement of the working class, independent of both capitalist parties. The continued stonewalling by the Department of Labor underscores once again the need for workers to build new organizations of struggle, independent of the union apparatus and the state.