GM lawsuit could fuel debate over calls for worker seats on corporate boards

General Motors’ long-running lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles includes a claim that the United Auto Workers union helped place a former Chrysler labor relations official at GM. The official, GM alleges, went on to turn over sensitive company information to the rival automaker.

In a May 11 opinion, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that former Fiat Chrysler labor executive Alphons Iacobelli could not broadly invoke constitutional and spousal privileges to avoid questioning and orders to produce documents in litigation brought by General Motors.

Iacobelli’s move to General Motors was done with help of the UAW, according to the GM suit. The plaintiff claims that Iacobelli, after leaving Chrysler in 2015, was chosen by Joseph Ashton, the United Auto Workers’ vice president, to serve in high-level positions within GM.

“GM alleges that FCA gained competitive advantages when it came to union wages and labor peace, causing GM to suffer billions of dollars in damages,” the lawsuit said.

General Motors filed its lawsuit against Chrysler in 2019, after the U.S. Department of Justice successfully prosecuted executives, employees, and union officials at Chrysler for financial and collective bargaining corruption.

At the center of the suit is Iacobelli’s role as a labor relations executive responsible for union negotiations and labor-management programs.

The lawsuit claims that the union used Iacobelli’s position at GM to obtain confidential information and create bargaining contracts at Chrysler that gave it a competitive advantage over GM.

20260511_C370051_105_370051.opn by mcclallen

The GM suit comes as labor organizations and their political allies propose laws that would require companies to place employees on corporate boards, where they would have access to sensitive information beneficial to unions.

American Compass advocates a federal law that would require companies to elect employees to their boards.

“Congress should amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to give worker organizations the option of electing worker board representatives from among the workforce,” the publication states on its website.

Iacobelli conspired with Chrysler executives and UAW officials to provide more than $1.5 million in prohibited payments and “things of value” to senior union officials, the United States Attorney’s Office said in 2018. General Motors alleges he used his position to provide sensitive information to Chrysler.

“The indictment alleged that between January 2009 and July 2015, Iacobelli and other individuals willfully paid and delivered more than $1.2 million in payments and things of value to UAW officials through the NTC. The payments were used for travel expenses, a home mortgage, and payments to a nonprofit organization affiliated with a UAW official.”

General Motors said in a 2019 press release that its lawsuit against Chrysler was precipitated by the criminal case. The company alleges that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which is now known as Stellantis, undermined the integrity of the collective bargaining process and as a result caused “substantial” damages to the company.

“FCA was the clear sponsor of pervasive wrongdoing, paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain benefits, concessions, and advantages in the negotiation, implementation, and administration of labor agreements over time,” stated the press release.

The lawsuit shows some of the harms caused by Michigan’s coercive labor law, Patrick Semmens, vice president for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email.

“The coercive nature of the current labor law regime already creates too many conflicts and opportunities for union officials to abuse their power,” Semmens wrote. “Currently union bosses look out for their own interests and power at the expense of the rank-and-file, and while they purport to advocate for all workers in a bargaining unit the fact is that union so-called representation regularly harms the interests of many employees, especially those who would benefit most from merit-based pay. In states without right-to-work laws, workers are additionally forced to pay money to union officials just to keep their jobs and have no say in how that money is ultimately used. Real accountability would come from making union affiliation and financial support fully voluntary to empower individual employees, not handing union officials another power to wield and abuse.”