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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.

This Is The Biggest Win For Workers In Decades

Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Vote Union

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, April 19, 2024

In a watershed victory, workers at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted tonight "UAW, yes!" The company's sole non-union plant will finally join the rest of the world.

“If Volkswagen workers at plants in Germany and Mexico have unions, why not us?” said equipment operator Briam Calderon in Spanish, ahead of the vote.

"Just like Martin Luther King had a dream, we have a dream at Volkswagen that we will be UAW one day," said Renee Berry, a logistic worker on the organizing committee who's worked at the plant for 14 years.

The UAW is riding a wave of momentum after winning landmark contracts at the Big 3 automakers last year. Production workers at Volkswagen earn $23 per hour and top out above $32, compared to $43 for production workers at Ford’s Spring Hill assembly plant by the contract’s end in 2028.

“We could see what other auto workers were making compared to what we were making,” said Yolanda Peoples, a member of the organizing committee on the engine assembly line.

To head off a union drive, Volkswagen boosted wages 11 percent to match the immediate raise UAW members received at Ford. Peoples saw her pay jump from $29 to $32 an hour.

“When they went on strike, we paid close attention just to see what happened. Once they won their contract, it changed a lot of people from anti-union to pro-union members,” said Peoples.

Today’s vote was a key test of whether the union could springboard the strike gains to propel new organizing in longtime anti-union bastions in the South, the anchors of big investments in the electric-vehicle transition.

The vote was 2,628 in favor of forming a union to 985 against. There were seven challenged ballots, and three voided; 4,326 workers were eligible to vote.

Previous efforts at this plant in 2014 and 2019 had gone down to narrow defeats. Ahead of the vote, workers said their co-workers had learned from those losses.

They brushed off threats that a union would make the plant less competitive and lead it to close. After all, VW invested $800 million here in 2019 to produce the I.D. Electric SUV.

“We have seen the enemy’s playbook twice, and they don’t have any new moves,” said Zach Costello, a member of the organizing committee and a trainer on the assembly line. “It’s the greatest hits now.”

The organizing committee beat the predictable anti-union talking points with conversations across the plant.

“At the end of the day, we’ve been focusing all our time and attention on the people who matter,” said organizing committee member Isaac Meadows, “and it’s our co-workers who cast votes.

“Now Mercedes workers [in Alabama] are right behind us. We’ve set the stage for them to win and they will create the momentum for Hyundai and Toyota.”

Mercedes workers will vote from May 13-16, with a ballot count on the 17.

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