Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Join UAW In Historic Labor Win
HuffPost
The election victory at a plant in Chattanooga marks a new chapter for the United Auto Workers and organized labor in the South.
Employees at Volkswagen’s SUV assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have voted to join the United Auto Workers in a historic labor victory, the union and Volkswagen announced late Friday.
A preliminary tally released by the company showed workers favored union representation by a count of 2,628 to 985, a nearly 3-1 margin. The landslide win gives the union a crucial toehold in the anti-union South.
The UAW called it a “historic breakthrough” in a statement.
More than 4,000 workers at the facility would be represented by the UAW, which has most of its auto membership at Ford, General Motors and Jeep parent company Stellantis, collectively known as the “Big Three.” The union previously lost two plant-wide votes at Volkswagen, including one in 2019, where it fell short by just 57 votes.
Volkswagen said in a brief statement that it would wait for the National Labor Relations Board to certify the results as official, suggesting it would not challenge them. The company, which is based in Germany, thanked its workers for voting.
