Shawn Fain wins UAW re-election with 68% of vote, slate sweeps board

Shawn Fain declared victory in early October 2026 in the United Auto Workers' leadership election, claiming a second four-year term with more than 68 percent of the vote — a margin so wide it left his nearest rival, incumbent Vice President Rich Boyer, stranded at just over 13 percent.

Preliminary ballot totals released by the federal monitor overseeing the election showed Fain defeating five challengers while his 'United UAW' slate swept nearly every contested seat on the International Executive Board. The results remain unofficial pending final certification by the monitor, but the current returns gave Fain a commanding lead across all top posts.

The membership has spoken. UAW members are united and want us to keep fighting and building on what we've done.— Shawn Fain, UAW President

These results are about taking on corporate America and reversing the worst out-of-control wealth inequality in America's history. We are fighting for the entire working class, whether that's at the bargaining table, organizing new members or in the political arena.— Shawn Fain, UAW President

The election functioned as a referendum on the direction Fain has taken the union since first winning the presidency in March 2023: a roughly six-week Stand-Up Strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis in the fall of that year, followed by new organizing campaigns that brought Volkswagen workers in Tennessee into the UAW in 2024 — the first unionized foreign-owned auto assembly plant in the South — and a first contract for those workers earlier this year.

In phone interviews with a dozen members conducted by Labor Notes, auto workers cited better contracts, pensions, post-retirement health care, and concerns about automation and job security as their key reasons for backing Fain. For most, infighting at union headquarters was secondary. Labor Notes reported that members "looked at their pay stubs and voted accordingly."

We had a good experience with the 2023 strike, and I've been watching the new organizing efforts. I think the UAW has come a long way since Fain got into office.— Candyla Brown, UAW Local 551 member, Ford Chicago Assembly

I voted for Fain and his slate because I've seen transparency at the top of the union and want to see the same in my local.— Jessica Acosta, Ford Local 249, Kansas City

Boyer, who heads the union's Stellantis division, ran on the 'Integrity Slate' alongside incumbent Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and incumbent Vice President Mike Booth. Their campaign centered largely on lowering union dues and reducing staff at headquarters. Of the union's dozens of large locals, only two went to Boyer — Local 140 at Warren Truck and Local 1700 at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, both situated near Detroit and close to his home base.

Fain and his slate are the only ones that have a real program for the future of the union. You'd think the other people would have come up with something aside from they want to reduce dues, which means basically cripple the new organizing.— Nelson Lichtenstein, historian and author of Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit

The election was shadowed by a Department of Justice investigation announced in July 2026, in which Fain was accused of pressuring Boyer to provide benefits to his fiancée and sister, then retaliating against Boyer when he refused. Fain denied the allegations, calling them an attempt to interfere in the election.

Fain also clashed repeatedly with the union's federally appointed independent monitor, Neil Barofsky. The release this year of a recorded 2023 call between Fain and Barofsky sharpened those tensions, drawing public criticism of the monitor and demands that he step down. Barofsky was also accused of pressuring Fain over a UAW resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The members chose Fain, despite the Monitor's best efforts to create turbulence, because we're ready to fight for retirement health care and protection from A.I. layoffs in 2028.— Gary Chynoweth, vice chair, UAW Member Action

Fain's slate-mate for secretary-treasurer, Brandon Campbell, also captured more than two-thirds of the vote against two rivals including incumbent Margaret Mock. The slate's three vice-presidential candidates each drew between 19 and 25 percent in a field of 11 — clearing the 16.7 percent threshold needed to win. If the sweep holds through final certification, United UAW will control every seat on the International Executive Board except one regional director position.

Voter turnout was low — roughly 10 percent of the union's approximately 400,000 active members and 600,000 retirees returned mail ballots, a figure similar to the 2022 election. Mail ballots returned by higher education and legal aid locals on the East Coast dropped by more than half compared with 2022, with those units recording fewer than 2,000 ballots counted. At the University of California's Local 4811, Fain won 75 percent of the vote, but only about 2,500 of 60,000 members there participated. As in the previous election, manufacturing locals drove the outcome.

This is only the second time UAW members have voted directly for their top officers in the union's 91-year history. The one-member-one-vote system was adopted in December 2021 following a corruption scandal that ousted prior leadership.

With the election settled, Fain has set his sights on upcoming battles: contract talks with John Deere, Volvo, and General Dynamics Land Systems in 2027, followed by the expiration of the Big Three automaker contracts on May Day 2028. Pension restoration and post-retirement health care are the central demands he has built those negotiations around — goals Detroit's automakers say could drive up costs at a time when they are already contending with weaker demand.

Why it matters — Fain's lopsided win gives him a fresh four-year mandate to pursue an aggressive 2028 bargaining campaign against the Detroit Three — with restored pensions and AI job protections at the top of the agenda — while the DOJ investigation and ongoing monitor tensions leave unresolved legal and governance questions hanging over the union.

Reported by wsj.com, freep.com, time.news, reuters.com, nytimes.com, labornotes.org, uk.news.yahoo.com, particle.news