After Feds Seized His Golf Clubs, UAW’s Embattled Boss Lays Low

In a closed-door meeting at a Detroit casino two years ago, retiring United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams revealed his successor would be Gary Jones, an accountant then running the union’s western region. The resounding reaction among the union brass in the room was: Gary who?

The UAW’s former chief bean counter didn’t strike anyone as a firebrand in the image of the union’s legendary leader Walter Reuther. But the union was the target of a widening federal corruption probe, and the buttoned-down CPA was seen as the antidote to the UAW’s growing image problem.

Gary Jones gestures during a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles event in Auburn Hills, Michigan on July 16.

Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

Now Jones, 62, appears ...