A federal watchdog overseeing the United Auto Workers has ordered UAW Region 2B Director Dave Green and Assistant Director Rick Smith to immediately stop pressuring staff over the union's ongoing international election, after investigators found a pattern of loyalty tracking and threatened job consequences tied to Green's reelection campaign. The Notice of Election Rules Violation and Cease-and-Desist Order, issued on Tuesday, lands squarely in the middle of the union's fall vote for international leadership.
Monitor Cites Seven Complaints Over Three Months
According to The Detroit News, Region 2B leadership is accused of monitoring staff who supported Green's opponent, threatening consequences for those employees, and specifying career opportunities for people who backed Green's campaign. The order stems from seven complaints filed between June and August, according to a letter written by Glen McGorty, a Crowell & Moring partner in New York who serves on the monitor team led by Neil Barofsky, the court-appointed UAW monitor and an attorney at Jenner & Block LLP. McGorty wrote that the conduct was among the most serious categories of election rules violations, per the same report.
The monitor's order, issued directly through the union's official election portal, according to the UAW, directs Region 2B leaders to cease any activity impeding members' ability to support or oppose candidates. It explicitly prohibits intimidation or retaliation of any kind, bars conditioning professional opportunities, work assignments, or other benefits on political support for Green's campaign, and forbids tracking staff's political support altogether. The action falls under Rule 4-4 of the official rules for the 2026 election, which requires reported violations to be investigated by the monitor and prohibits threats, intimidation, retaliation, penalty, discipline, improper interference, reprisal, or similar conduct, the Detroit News reports.
Investigation Remains Open, More Action Possible
The monitor's investigation is described as a preliminary inquiry that remains ongoing, and Barofsky's team may impose additional actions against Region 2B leaders as it continues. The Detroit News reported that Green, his attorney, and the UAW had not responded immediately, and a representative for Fain's campaign declined to comment. Green is running for reelection on the United UAW slate led by UAW President Shawn Fain.
This is not the monitor's first election-related enforcement action this cycle. On August 4, Barofsky's team entered into a formal stipulation with union staff organizer Ray Jensen after investigating allegations that he posted a threatening image on Facebook targeting a candidate for UAW International President, resolving that complaint weeks before the Region 2B order was issued.
A Union Region Built on Decades in Lordstown
Green was elected UAW Region 2B Director in December 2022, winning nearly 60 percent of the vote as an independent challenger against incumbent Wayne Blanchard, according to WFMJ. His career traces back to 1989, when he started as a summer helper at General Motors' Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio, and he later served as president of UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown before that plant closed. Region 2B, headquartered in Maumee, Ohio, with a secondary office in Indianapolis, represents more than 60,000 active members across over 50 employers spanning Ohio and Indiana, including Big Three assembly facilities, parts suppliers, and public sector workers.
Election Clock Is Ticking as Scrutiny Mounts
Mail-in ballots for the 2026 UAW International Officer Election began going out to members on August 21, with a receipt deadline of October 5 and vote counting set for October 6 in Rosemont, Illinois, according to UAW Local 412. Members must be in good standing by September 30 for their votes to be tabulated. The race pits Fain against several challengers, including Vice President Rich Boyer, Will Lehman, Brian Keller, Tricia Geiger, and Greg Mooney, with Boyer emerging as Fain's chief rival after internal executive board friction, as reported by The Guardian.
The Region 2B order arrives against a backdrop of far bigger federal scrutiny of the union's top leadership. In July, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a grand jury investigation involving Fain after Barofsky reported that Fain retaliated against Boyer by stripping him of Stellantis bargaining duties following Boyer's refusal to approve financial benefits for Fain's fiancée and her sister, according to The Guardian. Fain has denied the claims and accused Barofsky of political bias.
The monitorship itself was created under a January 2021 consent decree between the Justice Department and the UAW, following a multi-year federal corruption probe that sent more than a dozen union officials and auto executives to prison. That decree also mandated the direct one-member, one-vote system now governing the 2026 race, which is only the second such direct election in the UAW's 91-year history, following a 2021 referendum in which 63 percent of participating members voted to scrap the old delegate convention system.
The oversight apparatus has not come cheap. Hoodline previously reported that total expenditures for the federal monitorship surpassed $25 million by 2026, fueled by legal disputes and document production battles between union leadership and Jenner & Block LLP. With ballots already in members' hands and the count just weeks away, the Region 2B case underscores how actively federal oversight continues to shape the UAW's internal politics from the shop floor up through its highest offices.
