In the statement released Thursday, the UAW said Gamble and the union’s executive board removed Jones from office and forced “his expulsion from the UAW. Action has been taken against other former UAW staff and officials who have violated Union policies or laws,” the statement said.
Jones, a certified public accountant who lives in O’Fallon, Mo., near St. Louis, became a UAW member when he was hired at a now-shuttered Ford glass plant in Broken Arrow, Okla., in 1975. He joined the UAW International staff in 1990 and was assigned to the union’s accounting department. He later became its chief accountant.
Jones was chosen as director of UAW Region 5, headquartered in Hazelwood, Mo., also near St. Louis, during a special election in October 2012. He was re-elected to that position in June 2014.
As the UAW’s president, he typically shunned the media, discontinuing the quarterly press conferences that Williams had instituted. During a press conference at the union’s special bargaining convention in March, Jones read a short, prepared statement to the media before leaving his spokesman to answer questions.
As the corruption probe intensified, Jones further withdrew from the public spotlight. The Labor Day parade in Detroit during a UAW contract year is typically marked by a speech from the president. Jones, however, marched only half of the parade route before leaving without speaking to media or his membership. A spokesman later said he went to attend other unidentified events.
During the early days of the 2019 contract negotiations, he opted to send his spokesman to meet with the media and did not appear at press conferences announcing the strike against General Motors, or tentative deals with either GM or Ford. During the GM strike, he was not publicly spotted at the picket lines; when politicians came for photo opportunities, the union chose to send regional directors instead.
