UAW moves to hold vote to unionize plant in Tenn.
Effort at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga facility has failed twice in past
The United Auto Workers union hopes the third time’s a charm as the workers at Volkswagen Chattanooga in Tennessee filed Monday for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board.
The move comes about three months after workers at the plant launched a public campaign to organize, which was promoted in part by the UAW’s big contract wins against the Detroit Three last fall following a 46-day strike.
Volkswagen Chattanooga workers were the first to launch their public campaign, with 30% of the 4,000 workers at the plant signing cards to join the union in December, just one week after thousands of autoworkers at 14 nonunion automakers launched simultaneous efforts to join the union, the UAW has said.
How an election gets held
According to the NLRB website, to start the election process, a petition must be filed with the nearest regional office showing support from at least 30% of employees at the facility.
The UAW has previously said it wanted 70% of a workforce to sign cards before an organizing
committee made up of plant workers demand that a company recognize the union. If the company does not, the UAW would then file a petition with the NLRB to take a plant vote.
Once the petition is filed, “(The board’s) agents will then investigate to make sure the Board has jurisdiction, the union is qualified, and there are no existing labor contracts or recent elections that would bar an election,” the board’s rules read. “Shortly after the petition is filed, the employer is required to post a Notice of Petition for Election in conspicuous places, including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted.”
The board will seek an election agreement between the employer and union to set the date, time and place for balloting, the ballot language and other factors to determine who is eligible to vote. Once an agreement is reached, the parties authorize the board’s regional director to conduct the election.
“If no agreement is reached, the Regional Director will hold a hearing and then may order an election and set the conditions in accordance with the Board’s rules and its decisions,” the board’s website said.
Past votes at VW
The UAW has a history of trying to organize, and failing, in the South, particularly at VW’s Chattanooga plant, which is the automaker’s only plant in the United States. In 2014, the union was confident it would win a vote at the VW plant because it had a majority who’d
signed cards in favor of a union.
But on day one of a three-day vote, the Republican leadership of the state of Tennessee mounted a major campaign to vote no. The GOP’s campaign worked and the UAW failed to organize the plant. In 2019, the UAW again narrowly lost a vote at the plant.
Where the UAW movement stands
The UAW last year created a webpage UAW.org/join where nonunion employees can sign cards to unionize. The drive covers nearly 150,000 autoworkers across 13 automakers, including electric carmakers Tesla and Rivian.
Last month, UAW President Shawn Fain told the Free Press he expects to organize at least one new automaker plant in the country this year, possibly more. Fain said all he needs is one plant where 70% of the workers have signed cards, then take it to a vote and win. That would provide the momentum to win more, he said.
So far, VW has the most workers signed up.
A “majority of workers” at Mercedes-Benz’s largest plant in the United States, MBUSI in Vance, Alabama, have signed union cards in support of joining the union. Earlier this month, workers at Toyota’s plant in Troy, Missouri, launched a public campaign to join the UAW after more than 30% of plant workers signed union authorization cards. It is the first Toyota plant and the fourth nonunion plant to go public with the campaign to unionize. On Feb. 1, the UAW said 30% of workers at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama had signed cards.