Volkswagen workers are voting on whether to join the UAW. The results can be felt across the country

Volkswagen workers are voting on whether to join the UAW. The results can be felt across the country

Renee Berry has worked at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee since 2010, shortly after it opened, long enough to see a majority of her co-workers vote twice against joining the United Auto Workers union. He thinks the third vote taking place this week will be different.

“It’s a whole different ball game,” he said. “The atmosphere is different. You see more pro-union than anti-union [workers]. A lot of people who were anti-union in the past have converted.”

The union vote at the Volkswagen plant will mean more than whether the 4,300 hourly workers in Chattanooga are UAW members or not. It could be the start of a revolution in the US auto industry, which hasn’t seen a new automaker merge in nearly 50 years.

Today the industry is almost evenly divided between union and non-union workers in US auto plants, and unionizing a plant in Tennessee would give unions a high-profile coastal head in the South, which has long been difficult territory for unions to organize.

Because the plant is in Tennessee, and not Michigan or Pennsylvania or some of the more united northern states, the results may be close, as they were in two previous votes in 2014 and 2019 on the plant. The latest poll saw 52% decide not to join the union.

The plant has more than double its workforce of 1,600 eligible to vote in the 2019 election. Union supporters hope many of the younger new hires will be more union-friendly than workers in 2019.

Union opponents among the rank and file hope the union will lose again, though they admit they are not sure that will happen this time.

“I do not know. It can go anywhere,” said Darrell Belcher, who also started working shortly after the plant opened. “Last time we were worried it would switch [to the union]. I hear people say there are more people against it than people think.”

The UAW deal after the strike automatically influenced the vote
But not only there are more, and different workers at the Volkswagen factory than last time.

The earlier vote came after the union had negotiated a concession contract in which members at the union’s automaker had given up past profits, and following a corruption scandal that will land two former union presidents in prison.

This time the UAW will be the winner, after negotiating record wage increases at GM, Ford and Stellantis. An unprecedented simultaneous strike at all three automakers won an immediate increase of at least 11% and a pay rise of more than 30% over the life of the contract which runs until April 2028.

Although Volkswagen quickly matched the UAW contract with the Big Three with its own 11% raise, Berry said their contract in Chattanooga still isn’t as good as the UAW’s offer, and people know it.

“It opened a lot of people’s eyes. That made a big impact,” Berry said.

“People here support [the strikers],” said Kelcey Smith, another union supporter who has been at VW for about a year. “It [the strike and the agreement that followed] shows what you can achieve.”

Smith said he’s never had a union-represented job, and while he supports the union’s efforts, it doesn’t mean he holds anything against the company. “I like my job. I enjoy being an employee here,” he said.

But he said he wants the better wages and benefits he sees workers at unionized auto plants, to provide more for his family.

Volkswagen says the average worker at its factories earns about $60,000 a year before bonuses and benefits. Production workers working under recent UAW contracts now earn about $36 an hour, or about $75,000 a year before overtime, bonuses and benefits.

“I want to be financially secure, to give them a cushion in life,” Smith said. “I want to do what I can to make things better for them.”

But Belcher said he worries what will happen to his job if the union wins the wages his supporters at the plant promised they would achieve after the UAW victory.

“In my opinion, if Volkswagen agreed to something like that, they would pack up and go to Mexico,” he said.

Volkswagen remains neutral
The company said it was neutral in the election, only urging employees to vote as they wished. That is quite rare in union representative elections, where peng affairs often lobby workers to vote no at mandatory meetings, and sometimes take action against union organizers. Even union supporters admit that’s not the case in this case, however.

One thing that helps the UAW is that unions have more influence in Germany than in the United States, and the main Volkswagen union there has seats on company boards. This is also the only VW factory without union representation.

The vote was the first of the UAW’s efforts to organize workers at 13 non-union automakers spread across the country, mostly in the South.

An the other lot, at the Mercedes plant outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is expected to be completed by May 17. And efforts are underway to organize workers at the American plants of eight other foreign automakers beyond VW and Mercedes – BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo, as well as the plants of three US-based electric vehicle makers – Tesla, Rivian and Lucid.

Together with US plants the companies have about 150,000 workers, about as many as the three unionized automakers whose workers went on strike last year.

Even if the union won in Chattanooga, it could be an uphill battle to win at other companies, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations. But it will be an important step in a broader organizing effort, he said. And that could change the dynamic in future auto contract negotiations.

“It’s not going to be like a domino where the rest all fall quickly,” he said. “But it’s going to start building momentum. When you get more plants organized, you have more leverage at the table and you can set the pattern of the [contracting] industry.”

Southern governors are worried
Because of the potential for organizing efforts to pick up steam when a factory joins a union, the vote is being watched closely by people across the auto industry and the labor movement, as well as politicians across the South, who have worked hard to lure manufacturers to their states with the promise of free labor. unity.

“The reality is companies have choices when it comes to where to invest and bring jobs and opportunities. We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our state,” said a letter signed this week by Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and five other Southern governors — from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas — who have non-union car factories in their states. “Union will certainly put our state jobs in jeopardy.”

Less than 5% of workers belong to a union in those six states, which is less than half of union representation in the other seven northern industrial states where the Big Three have most of their factories.

It’s not just Republican governors weighing votes. President Joe Biden, who became the first president to visit picket lines during the UAW strike last fall, and who has been endorsed by the UAW, congratulated Volkswagen workers when they filed for election last month. But Biden’s relationship with the union did not play well among the rank and file who will vote at the Chattanooga plant.

“I know a lot of people on the pro side have switched,” said Corey Linn, a 13-year employee and one of those working against the union. “The biggest argument for making the switch is when they find out that Biden supports the UAW. He’s not that popular in Tennessee.”

Union supporters say they’ve also heard from co-workers who fear their tax dollars will go to Biden, even though political donations from unions don’t come from tax dollars collected.