“Groundbreaking victory”: VW workers organize union in southern US state

“Groundbreaking victory”
VW workers organize unions in southern US state

April 20, 2024, 10:48 a.m

Listen to article

It is a milestone: there has been a strong anti-union mood in the southern US states for decades. But now the workers at a VW plant in Tennessee are voting to join a union for the first time.

Workers at VW’s US plant in Chattanooga have decided to unionize for the third time. It’s a major victory for the United Auto Workers (UAW), which wants to expand its influence beyond the three American auto giants. According to VW and the union, 73 percent of workers voted to be represented by the UAW in the vote that ended Friday. The result still has to be confirmed by the US authority NLRB.

The union has failed twice in recent years to organize workers at the Tennessee plant. However, the UAW currently has a tailwind: Last fall, after a week-long strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis in the USA, it achieved better working conditions and income increases of around 25 percent. The union has so far had a difficult time in the southern US states and in the factories of foreign car manufacturers. It has also not yet managed to get a foot in the door with the electric car manufacturer Tesla.

With 3,613 votes cast, 83.5 percent of workers took part in the vote. 2,628 of them voted for UAW representation. IG Metall at Volkswagen emphasized that Chattanooga was the group’s only factory without employee representation. The president of the European and global works council at Volkswagen, Daniela Cavallo, said the workforce in Chattanooga had “written a piece of US union history.”

The UAW aims to represent 13 companies with nearly 150,000 employees. Most locations are in southern states like Tennessee. There will also be a vote at Mercedes-Benz in Vance, Alabama. It is scheduled to take place from May 13th to 17th.

The VW plant was the first plant in a southern state to join the UAW union, they wrote “New York Times”. The result is a breakthrough and “groundbreaking victory” for the trade union movement in a region where strong anti-union sentiment has prevailed for decades. “Tonight you all took a huge, historic step together,” the paper quoted Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, as saying at a celebratory gathering in Chattanooga. “Tonight we celebrate this historic moment in the history of our country and our union. Let’s get to work and achieve more for the working class of this country.”