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Historic UAW Win Opens the Floodgates For Organizing in the South
By Michaela Winter - Jobs With Justice, April 20, 2024
On Friday, August 19, Tennessee workers won their union in a resounding watershed victory. After two heartbreaking union elections at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant in 2014 and 2019, the votes have been tallied for a third, worker-led campaign to unionize the Volkswagen plant with the United Auto Workers. Workers overwhelmingly voted YES to join UAW. Despite facing interference from anti-worker politicians, workers in Chattanooga have made history.
Leading the South
The momentum of this win is groundbreaking for workers in Tennessee and represents the thrilling possibilities of workplace democracy not yet experienced in the majority of the southern United States. There is no doubt that this victory has arrived during a critical moment.
19 billion dollars of federal funding is being injected into Tennessee to support manufacturing and renewable energy infrastructure, and corporations have made it clear they plan to utilize similar funding in neighboring southern states. While the clean energy boom is set to create thousands of jobs, the risk of exploitation – in a region already disenfranchised by low-paying wages and poor safety standards – is a looming and urgent reality. Unless workers unite to demand their fair share of the clean energy future they will build.
Workers will turn this energy towards union-hostile Alabama at a Mercedes plant in May before their election to join the UAW.
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