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Mackinac Center Sues UAW for Fake Union Scheme
July 27, 2020
The United Auto Workers demanded that its employees fund a fake union and threatened to fire workers who didn’t pay into it. Jim Shake was an actuary at UAW headquarters in Detroit for a decade. Beginning in 2014, the union forced him to contribute to “Local X” – supposedly a local UAW union, for which Shake and Mackinac Center Legal Foundation attorneys could find no record.
“After initially refusing to contribute to the union and informing my supervisor that Michigan is a right-to-work state, my job was then threatened,” said Shake. “I paid the dues, but then found out there was no actual union – nobody was representing me. I believe this was a fake union set up to withhold dues as part of a kickback scam.”
Shake is now retired, but over several years, he paid more than $7,500 in “dues” to this mysterious local. Other employees of the UAW were also forced to contribute funds, so the total amount the UAW may have stolen and defrauded its so-called members remains unknown. By taking this issue to the courts, the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation hopes to shed light beneath the corrupt underbelly of the UAW’s schemes and further prevent other employees from experiencing similar abuse.
