Ex-UAW chief says GM bribery claims are 'utterly baseless'

DETROIT (AP) — Former United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger is denying claims by General Motors that he took bribes paid into foreign bank accounts by Fiat Chrysler in order to stick GM with higher labor costs.

Gettelfinger called the company's allegations a “malicious and utterly baseless attack” designed to cause as much harm as possible to the union.

“I have never had control over any financial account in any foreign country, nor has any member of my family," Gettelfinger wrote in a letter distributed Tuesday by a union spokesman. “Neither I nor any member of my family have ever received one cent from a foreign account like GM claimed.”

GM made the accusations Monday in a federal court filing asking a judge to reconsider the dismissal of a lawsuit against rival Fiat Chrysler. The nation's largest automaker claims that FCA bribed union officials so they would give GM over $1 billion in higher labor costs during contract negotiations, with the ultimate goal of forcing GM into a merger with Fiat Chrysler.

The accusation is the first against Gettelfinger in connection with a wide-ranging UAW bribery and embezzlement scandal that so far has snared 10 union officials on federal charges. Some spent thousands in union money for golf, lodging and fancy meals. Gettelfinger's name has not come up in the federal probe of union corruption.

GM alleges in the court records that FCA bribed Gettelfinger, former UAW President Dennis Williams, former Vice President Joe Ashton and former Vice President General Holiefield “by granting those individuals control over foreign financial accounts with substantial funds.”

Gettelfinger, who was union president after Fiat took over Chrysler in 2009, helped to make sure Holiefield and Williams kept their union leadership posts “in order to preserve and progress the...