DETROIT — More than two dozen workers at a Jeep plant in Ohio have filed a federal racketeering lawsuit accusing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the UAW of conspiring to rob them of pay, benefits and seniority.
Workers at FCA’s Toledo Assembly Complex say FCA and union officials “engaged in a classic pattern of racketeering, including committing multiple violations of bribery.” The suit was filed less than two weeks after a federal judge in Detroit dismissed General Motors’ racketeering lawsuit against FCA.
The accusations relate to federal prosecutors’ yearslong corruption probe into the union that uncovered a pattern of embezzlement in which senior officials, including the former UAW president, siphoned money away from workers to pay for lavish meals, golf outings and other personal luxuries. The Toledo employees allege the defendants were “illegally manipulating the collective bargaining and grievance processes and diverting funds from the National Training Center and other FCA funds for the benefit of UAW officials.”
The lawsuit also lists a number of defendants who have pleaded guilty to embezzlement and other charges, including former UAW President Gary Jones, former FCA labor relations chief Alphons Iacobelli and former FCA financial analyst Jerome Durden.
The 27 employees who filed the lawsuit all began working at FCA in 2007 as temporary, part-time employees. They say they were not moved up to full-time status after a 120-day period, as the contract at the time called for, and that others were hired ahead of them despite their seniority.
When they were hired full time in 2013, they were paid less than they had been previously.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges that grievances filed by the workers went nowhere, and a judge in a similar 2015 lawsuit ruled in favor of FCA and the UAW. An internal appeals process following the ruling failed to gain traction.
The Toledo workers say they are bringing up the issue again in light of the additional information that has become public since then.
During the previous lawsuit and appeals process, the suit says, “high-level officials at Chrysler and the UAW were engaging in a wide-ranging, long-lasting criminal bribery scheme aimed at saving Chrysler millions of dollars by having the union take company-friendly positions, i.e., interpreting contractual language in a way that deprived Chrysler employees, like plaintiffs, of pay and seniority and derailing the exact type of grievances and lawsuits that plaintiffs were attempting to bring.”
A UAW spokesman said the union does not comment on pending legal matters but that “the issue has previously been reviewed at numerous levels within the UAW including the independent Public Review Board.”
An FCA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The workers are seeking their tier-one permanent status, with pay, benefits and seniority retroactive to when they say it should have been achieved, among other damages.
GM has said it plans to appeal the July 8 dismissal of its suit accusing FCA of bribing UAW negotiators to gain a labor-cost advantage and attempt to force a merger with GM. U.S. District Judge Paul Borman said in his order throwing out the case that GM was only suffered “indirect” harm from the bribery scheme it alleged.
“FCA’s UAW workers were the direct victims of the bribes because they were paid less,” Borman wrote.
