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Fiat Chrysler agrees to plead guilty, pay $30M in UAW probe

DETROIT  — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $30 million fine for a corruption scandal at the union that represents its factory workers, authorities said Wednesday. Company representatives gave more than $3.5 million in cash and other things of value to senior officials at the United Auto Workers, federal prosecutors in Detroit said as they charged FCA with conspiracy from 2009 to 2016. Details of the payoffs have been public for a few years and acknowledged during guilty pleas by FCA employees and others. FCA spokeswoman Shawn Morgan confirmed the company's planned guilty plea and fine. Al Iacobelli was the head of labor relations at Fiat Chrysler and co-chairman of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center in Detroit. The government said he signed off on $262,000 to wipe out a mortgage held by UAW vice president General Holiefield, who was the center's other co-chairman. Iacobelli also approved $25,000 from the training center for a party for union vice president Norwood Jewell and the UAW's international executive board, the criminal charge states. Training center credit cards paid for more than $30,000 in meals for UAW officials at various restaurants in Southern California, the government said. “They did that with the hope that the company itself could possibly get more favorable treatment from the unionÂ’s leaders” during labor negotiations, U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said Wednesday. Indeed, an indictment returned in 2017 said Iacobelli and others set up a liberal policy for credit cards to keep union officials “fat, dumb and happy." Iacobelli was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in 2018, but the sentence was recently reduced by 18 months due to his cooperation. Holiefield died in 2015; his wife pleaded guilty to a tax crime three years later. The governmentÂ’s investigation began at the training center but stretched to other corrupt acts at the UAW. Eleven officials have been convicted, including two former union presidents. Investigators found that union dues were used to pay for golf, booze and vacation villas in California. The UAW recently agreed to have an independent monitor watch union finances and operations. Fiat Chrysler US is a subsidiary of Stellantis, a company created by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Peugeot.

Chrysler shows creative side with employee art exhibit

The United Auto Workers and Chrysler recently sponsored 92 works of art created by 50 of the automaker's unionized and salaried employees for the 2013-14 Artists at Work Exhibition, the ninth such show, which recognizes the creative process required to make art and manufacture vehicles. Chrysler says the event is "the country's only juried art show sponsored by a major corporation and a labor union." Unfortunately, the exhibit is not open to the public, but we have images to share of the winning pieces as well as other interesting exhibits in the gallery above.
"Art and manufacturing have more in common than you might think," says Keith Mickens, Chrysler-UAW National Training Center co-director from the UAW. "The creative process involved in producing a memorable image on a canvas can be used to help build quality vehicles on an assembly line."
A diverse range of art forms are showcased, from metal sculptures to ceramics to photography to paintings and more. Four Detroit-area professional artists narrowed down over 600 submissions to the 92 works of art that were shown at the exhibit, then awarded "Best of Show" prizes to three employees for their work (the first three images in our gallery) and selected 11 employees for honorable mentions. The overall winner is the sculpture above by Joseph Aiuto, titled "Childhood Anxiety."

Junkyard Gem: 1986 Chrysler Fifth Avenue

Chrysler started putting the New Yorker name on its top-end luxury dreadnaughts all the way back in the early 1940s. When it came time to pitch an even more exclusive New Yorker, what street did Chrysler choose for its name in 1979? Exactly. The Fifth Avenues started out as Plymouth Gran Fury siblings, then switched to the smaller M-Body Dodge Diplomat platform for the 1982-1989 model years. Here's a padded-landau-roof-equipped '86 Fifth Avenue, spotted in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service wrecking yard. Though the Fifth Avenue started life as a option package for the New Yorker, Chrysler ditched the New Yorker badging on these cars after the 1983 model year (while applying it, confusingly, to the Chrysler-badged front-wheel-drive E-Body). Perhaps this was due to certain Chrysler-demographic-terrifying developments in New York-based popular culture around that time. 1970s styling touches were still going strong in mid-1980s Detroit, and this car has lots of fake wood and button-tufted vinyl inside, with this stainless-trimmed padded landau roof outside. Mechanically speaking, it's a Dodge Diplomat, complete with 140-horsepower 318-cubic-inch (5.2 liter) V8, rear-wheel-drive, and three-speed automatic transmission. The Diplomat was a sturdy and reliable machine, but the $14,910 Fifth Avenue sticker price was a lot to pay for a Diplomat with some extra gingerbread, especially when the Diplomat listed at $10,086. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The Diplomat was a very popular choice for American law-enforcement duties during the 1980s, and the chase scene from Short Time shows a slightly exaggerated depiction of its tough construction. It's a shame that the filmmakers couldn't find a way to use a Fifth Avenue instead. For 1990, the Fifth Avenue name went onto a stretched version of the front-wheel-drive K Platform, then disappeared after 1993. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. "I enjoy making money... and spending it. But not foolishly." Related Video: