UAW Names New President After Gamble Retirement

DETROIT — Days after Rory Gamble announced he was retiring as the president of the United Auto Workers, the union named his successor.

Secretary-Treasurer Ray Curry, 55, was elected as the union's new president by the groups' International Executive Board on Monday, The Associated Press reported.

Curry will take office on Thursday, a day after Gamble's retirement becomes effective. His previous position will be filled by 61-year-old Frank Stuglin, The Associated Press reported, who had served as director of a union region in the Detroit area.

Related: UAW President Rory Gamble Announces Retirement

The 13th president in the labor union's history, Gamble steered the UAW through ethics reforms amid several federal investigations into corruption, saving the union from potential government takeover. Eleven union officials and a late official's spouse have pleaded guilty in the corruption probe since 2017, including the two presidents who served before Gamble, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, The Associated Press reported.

He'd been elected vice president of the UAW in June 2018. He'd previously serve three terms as director of UAW Region 1A. He became acting president of the UAW in November 2019 before taking the role full-time in December of that year.

Curry took a less direct approach to the president than Gamble, joining the union in 1992 as an assembler at Freightliner Trucks in North Carolina, The Associated Press reported. He negotiated labor contracts and led the union's move into casinos in 2015 upon becoming regional director in the south.

Curry replaced Jones as secretary-treasurer in 2018 and will likely have to face an election within a year, part of stipulations preventing a federal takeover of the agency.

In other UAW moves, Chuck Browning — the director of another Detroit-area regional union — was named union vice president, according to The Associated Press.