19 March, 2024Off the back of the auto union UAW’s successful Stand Up Strikes last year, workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga – the only Volkswagen plant globally with no form of employee representation – are filing for a union election.
The Volkswagen workers have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to join the UAW, after a large majority of workers in the plant signed union cards in just 100 days.
Workers are standing up to say that they are voting yes because a change is needed, they want to be heard and have a voice in their working conditions, and they believe in the power of UAW and the people that stand behind it.
The milestone marks the first non-union auto plant to file for a union election among the dozens of auto plants where workers have been organizing in recent months. The grassroots effort sprang up in the wake of the record victories for Big Three autoworkers in the UAW’s historic Stand Up Strike win.
Says IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie:
“A supermajority of the Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga have signed union cards and are ready to finally secure a UAW contract. Volkswagen needs to keep their hands off the table and give the workers a fair chance to exercise their constitutional rights. Any union busting will seriously damage the company reputation and cannot be tolerated.”
The Chattanooga plant is Volkswagen’s only U.S. assembly plant and employs over 4,000 autoworkers. The plant is located in the US South, which is probably one of the most anti-union regions in the world. For many years, Volkswagen in the US has been aggressively anti-union and have paid large sums of money to union-busting law firms instead of investing in employees and products.