It looks like United Auto Workers (UAW) is still pushing their union agenda in Tennessee—and now it appears they’re colluding with Volkswagen to ensure unionization at the automotive company’s Chattanooga plant. Whether or not workers there truly wish to unionize seems to be a non-issue.
According to UAW organizer Gary Casteel, a majority of Chattanooga employees favor representation. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean management is willing to put the matter up to a vote—a move that seems disingenuous at best and downright deceitful at worst.
If in fact a true majority is in favor, then what is the harm in allowing workers to vote? Turns out, unionization may not have as much support as Casteel would lead us to believe. According to Casteel, “We know if we go for a traditional election where the outside organizations could campaign against us, we’d probably lose.” Those aren’t the words of a man who is convinced he has a majority backing unionization.
As reported by the Washington Examiner, “If the plant does unionize, it will be more because Volkswagen’s management wants it, not the workers.” But why does Volkswagen suddenly want to unionize in a right-to-work state of over 65 years? The answer lies in a Big Labor strategy that aims to make union organizing easier at foreign-owned American automotive plants by taking advantage of European labor laws. That hardly seems fair or representative of the actual American workers involved.
In fact, some workers have already filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board citing UAW and Volkswagen’s coercive unionization tactics. Some, including Chattanooga worker Carol Wilson, have cited the highly questionable “card-check” practice as intentionally misleading workers into supporting a union. According to Wilson, “When I was approached to sign a [union] card a year and a half ago, it was, ‘Oh, the card just means you want more information’.” It was only when she found out that, by signing, she was in fact voting for the unionization, that Wilson revoked her union card.
That’s exactly why Volkswagen management and UAW want so desperately to forego a federally monitored secret ballot—the cornerstone of American democracy—in favor of the card-check process. While technically prohibited under a new state law, Big Labor remains hopeful they can lean on the NLRB to circumvent these legal hurdles.
The result, if UAW has its way, would be the forced unionization of auto workers in a prominent right-to-work state. Such a turn of events would be disastrous for Tennessee’s business-friendly reputation, and would end up costing workers in the short term and, eventually, Tennessee’s economy as a whole.
But, you have to give the UAW credit for their sudden candor. And we agree with them: if this were put to a vote in a secret ballot election, it would lose.
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