Tennessee Volkswagen workers to vote on union membership in test of UAW’s plan to expand its ranks
DETROIT– The United Auto Workers’ ambitious push to expand its reach to non-union plants in the South and elsewhere will be put to a major test Friday evening, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will vote on whether they want to join the union.
The UAW’s ranks in the auto industry have shrunk over the years as foreign-based companies with nonunionized U.S. factories have sold more and more vehicles.
In recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have twice rejected union membership. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019, just as federal prosecutors were breaking a bribery and embezzlement scandal at the union.
But this time, the UAW is operating under new leadership, directly elected by its members for the first time, and basking in a successful showdown with Detroit’s major automakers. The union’s combative new president, Shawn Fain, was elected on a platform of cleaning up after the scandal and more confrontation with automakers. An emboldened Fain, backed by President Joe Biden, led the union in a series of strikes against Detroit automakers last fall that resulted in lucrative new contracts.
The new contracts increased union wages by a significant third, giving Fain and his organizers tempting new offers for workers at Volkswagen and other companies.
“I’m very confident,” said Isaac Meadows, a Chattanooga assembly line worker who helped lead the union drive at the 353,353-square-foot plant that produces Atlas SUVs and the ID. 4 electric vehicles. “The excitement is very high at the moment. We put a lot of work into it, a lot of face-to-face conversations with colleagues from our volunteer committee.”
The UAW’s supporters have faced resistance from the company and some Republican leaders. In a presentation this week apparently aimed at dissuading the plant’s 4,300 production workers from voting for the union, Volkswagen listed examples of how the company pays and treats them well. And six Southern governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee, warned workers in a joint statement last week that joining the UAW could cost them their jobs and threaten the region’s economic progress.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the UAW, said there is a good chance this election could deliver a historic victory for the union. Public opinion, Masters said, is now generally more aligned with unions than in the past.
To approve membership, however, Chattanooga workers will have to look past warnings that joining the union, with its attendant higher wages, would lead to job losses. Since the UAW’s new contracts were signed in the fall with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, all three companies have cut a relatively small number of factory positions. But Ford CEO Jim Farley has said the strike will force his company to reconsider where it builds future vehicles.
“While the UAW’s reputation has improved as a result of new leadership and new contracts, it is still associated with a decline in the auto industry,” Masters said.
Shortly after the Detroit contracts were ratified, Volkswagen and other non-union companies gave their workers large raises. Fain characterized these wage increases as the “UAW bump” and claimed they were intended to keep the union out of the factories.
Last fall, Volkswagen raised wages for production workers by 11%, bringing the base wage to $32.40 per hour, or just over $67,000 per year. The average manufacturing worker earns approximately $60,000 per year, excluding benefits and attendance bonus. VW said his pay is higher than the median household income for the Chattanooga region, which was $54,480 last May, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
But under the UAW contracts, for example, top production workers at GM now earn $36 an hour, or about $75,000 a year before benefits and profit sharing, which ranged from $10,400 at Ford to $13,860 at Stellantis this year. By the end of the contract in 2028, top GM employees would earn more than $89,000.
Zach Costello, an employee who trains new workers at the Volkswagen plant, said wages should not be compared to typical wages in the Chattanooga region.
“What if we decided what we were worth and got paid what we were worth?” he asked.
VW claims its factories are safer than the industry average, based on data reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And the company claims it takes employee preferences into account when planning. It noted that it recently agreed to change the day third-shift workers start their week so they have Friday and Saturday off.
But Meadows, whose job is to prepare vehicles for the assembly line after the bodies are painted, says the company is adding overtime or sending workers home early whenever it wants.
“People are just a bit fed up,” he says.
VW, he argued, does not report all injuries to the government, but instead often blames them on pre-existing conditions a worker might have. The union has filed unfair labor practice complaints, including allegations that the company banned employees from discussing unions during work hours and restricted the distribution of union materials.
Volkswagen disputed the union’s allegations, saying it correctly reports injuries and supports workers’ right to vote on union representation.
If the union prevails in the VW plant vote, it would be the first time the UAW has represented workers at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South. However, it would not be the first unionized auto assembly plant in the South. The UAW represents workers at two Ford assembly plants in Kentucky and two GM plants in Tennessee and Texas, as well as some heavy-duty truck plants.