Volkswagen Chattanooga Workers Request Union Election With UAW

The union is hoping to parlay its strike against the "Big Three" into a historic organizing success in the U.S. South.

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have filed a petition seeking to hold a union election at their assembly plant, bringing the United Auto Workers to the cusp of a historic breakthrough in the U.S. South.

The UAW announced Monday morning that an overwhelming majority of employees there had signed union cards and asked the National Labor Relations Board to hold a vote. The union tried and failed to organize the full facility in previous campaigns, including a highly publicized 2014 effort in which the union lost 712-626.

The Chattanooga plant, which assembles the ID.4 and Atlas sport-utility vehicles, is one of several auto factories across the South where the UAW is organizing in the wake of its strike last year against Ford, General Motors and Jeep parent company Stellantis. The contract fight with the “Big Three” drew national attention and helped rehabilitate the UAW’s image after years of corruption scandals and high-profile election losses.

Now the union is hoping to parlay that victory into organizing success in Southern states where foreign-owned automakers have set up plants to take advantage of cheaper, non-union labor relative to the Midwest. Just 6% of workers in Tennessee are union members, compared with 10% in the U.S. generally.

The Volkswagen workers are the first of those new UAW campaigns in the South to request an election. Although it did not specify a percentage, the UAW said it had rounded up a “supermajority” of support on the factory floor in just a little over three months.