JOHN LOGAN
BY JOHN LOGAN
From Wednesday through Friday, 1,500 autoworkers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, are voting on whether to join the United Auto Workers union in a landmark National Labour Relations Board election. Like other US outposts of foreign auto companies, the facility, which opened in 2011, has never had a union.
A vote for unionisation at Volkswagen would be a historic victory — not only for the UAW, but for the entire labour movement. It would provide unions with a key victory in the South, even in the face of a lavishly-funded external anti-union campaign, and may lead to transformative changes in labour-management relations, especially among European-owned firms.
If the Chattanooga workers vote to unionise, they will provide another example that when companies remain neutral in union elections, employees usually choose unions. Instead of pressuring the employees to vote against the UAW, Volkswagen management has let workers make the choice on their own. This is exactly what should happen in union elections, but rarely does. Volkswagen would probably have recognised the union on the basis of documented interest among workers, but Republican politicians and anti-union groups such as the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) demanded that the company hold an NLRB election. Ironically, the NRTWC has insisted that Volkswagen provide employees who oppose the UAW with an opportunity to make their case to the workforce, something that pro-union workers never enjoy during standard US anti-union campaigns.
Unionised workers at the Chattanooga plant would almost certainly get the first works council in the United States — a type of organisation that deals with issues of employee welfare and management, such as flexibility in work schedules. Works councils, which operate at the plant level, have long been a key aspect of employment relations in many European countries. Currently, every one of Volkswagen’s 61 major production facilities outside of China has both a union and a works council, except for the Tennessee plant. A vote for unionisation would provide the UAW with a key victory in the “foreign auto transplants” — the US plants of European and Asian auto manufacturers, most of which are located in southern right-to-work states. The UAW has encountered robust opposition when it has attempted to organise in these facilities. Nissan is currently resisting efforts by autoworkers in Canton, Mississippi to form a union. The UAW has organised in several US-Japanese joint auto ventures, but not in any wholly-owned foreign automakers.
This time around, domestic and international allies have supported the struggles of US autoworkers. The fact that Volkswagen is allowing its workers a free and uncoerced choice on unionisation is in part because of support from the two million-member IG Metall, Germany’s largest union. Nissan workers have received support from unions in Brazil, South Africa, Japan, England and Australia. Civil rights, faith and environmental organisations have also assisted their efforts. If Volkswagen goes union, Nissan, Mercedes and other foreign auto transplants may soon follow suit.
A victory at Volkswagen would signal that the anti-union South — where elected officials have frequently joined with the business community and right-wing organisations to stop workers from organising — might not be so solid in future years. Unions have enjoyed some important recent victories, especially among predominantly Latino workforces, such as the Service Employees International Union’s janitors’ campaign in Houston, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union’s historic victory at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina. Union membership in the South is well below the national average of 11.3 percent, but in 2012, Tennessee had the biggest percentage growth in union membership of any US state, with Georgia and Alabama not far behind.
Most importantly, a UAW victory would show that even billionaire anti-union zealots can be beaten. Right-wing groups are furious that Volkswagen is not fighting the UAW, so they have chosen to do so on their own. National organisations funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and other right-wing activists have taken to the airwaves to demonise the UAW. State politicians have attempted to blackmail autoworkers to vote no by stating that Volkswagen may lose state financial support if it becomes unionised. Unionisation, one elected official explained, “was not part of the deal.”
In their effort to whip up anti-union fervour, UAW opponents have called it the “vilest of cancers,” “Ichneumon wasp larvae,” and “black shirted thugs.” If Volkswagen workers resist this blatant attempt at intimidation by anti-union organisations, they will make clear beyond a doubt that they want UAW representation. They will have rejected the insidious lies about “Big Labour” — and the depiction of unions as narrow and self-serving — that the Koch Brothers and others have been peddling for far too long. And they will have participated in a historic union victory. REUTERSBY JOHN LOGAN
From Wednesday through Friday, 1,500 autoworkers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, are voting on whether to join the United Auto Workers union in a landmark National Labour Relations Board election. Like other US outposts of foreign auto companies, the facility, which opened in 2011, has never had a union.
A vote for unionisation at Volkswagen would be a historic victory — not only for the UAW, but for the entire labour movement. It would provide unions with a key victory in the South, even in the face of a lavishly-funded external anti-union campaign, and may lead to transformative changes in labour-management relations, especially among European-owned firms.
If the Chattanooga workers vote to unionise, they will provide another example that when companies remain neutral in union elections, employees usually choose unions. Instead of pressuring the employees to vote against the UAW, Volkswagen management has let workers make the choice on their own. This is exactly what should happen in union elections, but rarely does. Volkswagen would probably have recognised the union on the basis of documented interest among workers, but Republican politicians and anti-union groups such as the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) demanded that the company hold an NLRB election. Ironically, the NRTWC has insisted that Volkswagen provide employees who oppose the UAW with an opportunity to make their case to the workforce, something that pro-union workers never enjoy during standard US anti-union campaigns.
Unionised workers at the Chattanooga plant would almost certainly get the first works council in the United States — a type of organisation that deals with issues of employee welfare and management, such as flexibility in work schedules. Works councils, which operate at the plant level, have long been a key aspect of employment relations in many European countries. Currently, every one of Volkswagen’s 61 major production facilities outside of China has both a union and a works council, except for the Tennessee plant. A vote for unionisation would provide the UAW with a key victory in the “foreign auto transplants” — the US plants of European and Asian auto manufacturers, most of which are located in southern right-to-work states. The UAW has encountered robust opposition when it has attempted to organise in these facilities. Nissan is currently resisting efforts by autoworkers in Canton, Mississippi to form a union. The UAW has organised in several US-Japanese joint auto ventures, but not in any wholly-owned foreign automakers.
This time around, domestic and international allies have supported the struggles of US autoworkers. The fact that Volkswagen is allowing its workers a free and uncoerced choice on unionisation is in part because of support from the two million-member IG Metall, Germany’s largest union. Nissan workers have received support from unions in Brazil, South Africa, Japan, England and Australia. Civil rights, faith and environmental organisations have also assisted their efforts. If Volkswagen goes union, Nissan, Mercedes and other foreign auto transplants may soon follow suit.
A victory at Volkswagen would signal that the anti-union South — where elected officials have frequently joined with the business community and right-wing organisations to stop workers from organising — might not be so solid in future years. Unions have enjoyed some important recent victories, especially among predominantly Latino workforces, such as the Service Employees International Union’s janitors’ campaign in Houston, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union’s historic victory at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina. Union membership in the South is well below the national average of 11.3 percent, but in 2012, Tennessee had the biggest percentage growth in union membership of any US state, with Georgia and Alabama not far behind.
Most importantly, a UAW victory would show that even billionaire anti-union zealots can be beaten. Right-wing groups are furious that Volkswagen is not fighting the UAW, so they have chosen to do so on their own. National organisations funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and other right-wing activists have taken to the airwaves to demonise the UAW. State politicians have attempted to blackmail autoworkers to vote no by stating that Volkswagen may lose state financial support if it becomes unionised. Unionisation, one elected official explained, “was not part of the deal.”
In their effort to whip up anti-union fervour, UAW opponents have called it the “vilest of cancers,” “Ichneumon wasp larvae,” and “black shirted thugs.” If Volkswagen workers resist this blatant attempt at intimidation by anti-union organisations, they will make clear beyond a doubt that they want UAW representation. They will have rejected the insidious lies about “Big Labour” — and the depiction of unions as narrow and self-serving — that the Koch Brothers and others have been peddling for far too long. And they will have participated in a historic union victory. REUTERS
