After being defeated twice to unionise the Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant workers at the plant voted on Friday overwhelmingly to unionise following a ballot vote of the workforce conducted by the National Labour relations Board.
In a landslide win with over 83% work workers taking part in the vote, 2,628 voted for union representation to 985 against, or 73% for representation by United Autoworkers union.
The win will make the Chattanooga factory the first non union auto plant in the southern states to unionise via an election since the 1940s and the first foreign-owned auto plant in the South to do so.
It is a vindication of the strategy by the UAW President Shawn Fain’s campaign to unionise non union plants owned by more than a dozen automakers across the USA.
Fain who has committed to spending $40 million on organising in the auto sector through to 2026 told UAW members at the ballot count : “You all have just done the most important thing a working class person can do, and that is stand up. You guys will lead the way. We will carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else.”
Having narrowly lost votes in Chattanooga in 2014 and 2019, this year’s vote was preceded by surging public support for unions and the successful contract negotiations with the big three US automakers earlier this year.
VW took a neutral position on the vote at its only non-union factory globally with Republican governors in six southern states including Tennessee campaigning in opposition to unionisation leading President Joe Biden rebuking them – citing several union victories in recent months.
“These union wins have helped raise wages and demonstrate once again that the middle-class built America and that unions are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers,” he said in a statement.
In addition to the Mercedes plant, the UAWsays that that more than 30% of employees at a Hyunda in Alabama and at Toyota auto parts factory in Missouri have signed union cards indicating they want union representation by the UAW.