Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee have filed a petition with the US National Labour Relations Board for a vote to join the the United Autoworkers Union after a ‘supermajority’ of Volkswagen workers signed union cards in just 100 days.
“Today, we are one step closer to making a good job at Volkswagen into a great career,” said Isaac Meadows, a production team member in assembly. “Right now, we miss time with our families because so much of our paid-time-off is burned up during the summer and winter shutdowns. We shouldn’t have to choose between our family and our job. By winning our union and a real voice at Volkswagen, we can negotiate for more time with our families.”
“We are voting yes for our union because we want Volkswagen to be successful,” said Victor Vaughn, a logistics team member at VW. “Volkswagen has spent billions of dollars expanding in Chattanooga, but right now safety is a major issue in our plant. Just the other day, I was almost hit by four 500-plus pound crates while I was driving to deliver parts. That incident should’ve been followed up within the hour, but even after I clocked out no one asked me about it. VW has partnered with unionised workforces around the world to make their plants safe and successful. That’s why we’re voting for a voice at Volkswagen here in Chattanooga.”
“I come from a UAW family, so I’ve seen how having our union enables us to make life better on the job and off,” said Yolanda Peoples, a production team member in assembly. “We are a positive force in the plant. When we win our union, we’ll be able to bargain for a safer workplace, so people can stay on the job and the company can benefit from our experience. When my father retired as a UAW member, he had something to fall back on. VW workers deserve the same.”
The milestone marks the first non-union auto plant to file for a union election among the dozens of auto plants where workers have been organising in recent months. The grassroots effort sprang up in the wake of the record victories for Big Three autoworkers in the UAW’s historic Stand Up Strike win.
The Chattanooga plant is Volkswagen’s only U.S. assembly plant and employs over 4,000 autoworkers. It is the only Volkswagen plant globally with no form of employee representation.
The Chattanooga VW plant has seen organising campaigns by the UAW in the recent past where workers have faced fierce anti union activity and open hostility by local managers – despite the company having signed a neutrality deal with the UAW. There have also been changing management attitutes towards unionisation. Political pressure was also brought to bear on the workforce by right wing politicians who gave media interviews and paid for advertising which wrongly stated that the plant would close and jobs would be lost if the Chattanooga site was unionised.
The German union IG Metall who organise workers the VW companies and sites in Germany were also involved in helping UAW organise the plant in the past, with IG Metall opening an office in the locality, and German union officials allowed access to the site. But workers at the plant voted narrowly against unionisation, with the exception of a group of 160 skilled engineers and technicians who woted for and won union recogntion.