A group of United Auto Workers members believed they had momentum behind a campaign to oust President Shawn Fain from office. Now, due to a procedural issue, they have to start all over again.

Earlier this summer, workers at six UAW locals, mostly in Metro Detroit, voted to begin an internal process that could result in Fain's removal. Members of at least two other union chapters turned the charges down, and voter turnout at some of the locals was relatively small for a union with more than 600 locals in all.

Still, the six approvals were enough to proceed with the recall effort. And those behind the campaign believed that several other locals would also quickly approve the charges, bolstering their message that it's time for new leadership ahead of the union's elections next year.

Among the group's charges against Fain: financial mismanagement, workplace retaliation, including against two key international leaders, and appointing certain senior staff without adequate backgrounds in the union. Most of the locals that approved the charges represent Stellantis NV plants, which have faced layoffs since the UAW secured historic contracts with the Detroit automakers in 2023 — cuts that the anti-Fain group said should've never happened.

But recently, the federal monitor overseeing the union after its years-long corruption scandal told the anti-Fain group that they had made a procedural error, said David Pillsbury, a worker at General Motors Co.'s Flint truck plant and one of the group's organizers.

The group had submitted six separate affidavits, rather than a single document showing the votes at each local, he said. That was due to fuzzy language outlining the process in the UAW constitution and the union's consent decree with the federal government.

So now the group — led by Pillsbury and Brian Keller, a Stellantis worker who ran against Fain in the last election — must start the process over again. Pillsbury said the plan is to again present the charges against Fain to members in the coming days, likely with some new accusations added. Then, a new round of meetings will be called at the same locals that approved the charges before. The goal is to once again secure enough approvals by the end of October.

"Everyone feels like they were lied to," Pillsbury said of Fain's leadership tenure.

He supported Fain in the union's last election, the first time in its history where members directly elected their leadership. But he got fed up with the president over what he saw as a lack of transparency, poor financial decisions with dues money, and hiring senior staff at Solidarity House who didn't have UAW pedigree.

UAW spokespeople didn't respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the federal monitor, Neil Barofsky, declined to comment.

If the anti-Fain group wins enough support at the local level, the next step is selecting a trial committee, and then potentially holding a trial, where both sides could present evidence. The committee could move to reprimand, suspend or remove Fain, if it came to that, under the union's constitution. Or, they could decide the removal attempt was malicious and penalize the accuser.

Marick Masters, a management professor emeritus at Wayne State University who has long tracked the union, said the procedural snafu could end up benefiting Fain.

“It’s a wrinkle ... you're setting the process back," he said of the anti-Fain group restarting the votes. "They’ve got to do the ballots over again. They can probably do it, but it’s delaying the process, and it gives Shawn Fain and his legal team more time to prepare.”

A group of more than 125 local union leaders across 50 locals signed onto a letter released this week supporting Fain. It said the so-called Article 30 charges against Fain were "politically motivated" and driven by Keller, who previously ran against Fain, and two UAW vice presidents — Margaret Mock and Rich Boyer — who had their duties stripped under Fain. It praised Fain for leading the charge during the Detroit Three strikes in 2023, and using those lessons to win other landmark contracts.

Greg Suggs, president of UAW Local 5286, which represents Daimler Truck workers in North Carolina, was among the leaders who signed onto the letter. He said he didn't vote for Shawn Fain in the last election, but is now a supporter after Fain helped his members win a new contract last year that included $10-an-hour raises for some members and other cost-of-living adjustments.

Fain and his team had taken an aggressive, "take-no-prisoners" approach with the company, and it paid off, Suggs said: "The support we got from the international and President Fain was a game-changer. It really made a difference."

Pillsbury acknowledged that the Article 30 process his group has started probably won't result in Fain being booted from office. But it will still be useful to organize against Fain ahead of next year's elections, he said, while also pushing the monitor to release additional reports about the union president that could shed more light on some of the group's accusations.

The monitor recently found that Fain had retaliated against Mock after she refused to approve some union expenses, and he continues to investigate allegations involving the other vice president, Boyer.

Masters agreed that the group's push to oust Fain could prompt Barofsky to release some additional details sooner, so that members have a more complete picture. And he said that this sharp disagreement over Fain's leadership inside the union does signal that he could face legitimate opposition in 2026. But that doesn't necessarily mean there's a crop of serious challengers waiting in the wings.

“It’s one thing to be able to get enough locals to file charges to trigger the trial committee," Masters said. "It’s another thing to mount a viable opposition campaign to Shawn Fain's presidency with a candidate who has a chance of winning. I don’t think they’re at that latter part, yet.”

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