UAW RIDES THE MOMENTUM. WILL IT BE ENOUGH AT VOLKSWAGEN?

After months of careful planning, organizing and campaigning, the UAW is approaching a critical moment in its efforts to unionize the Volkswagen assembly plant at Enterprise South, and an expected vote among employees there might just prove the expression “third time’s a charm.”

The United Auto Workers’ third attempt to unionize the VW plant, which now employs about 4,000 people, comes after employees on Monday filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to align with the union.

Riding a wave a momentum the UAW created last year with successful contract negotiations with the auto industry’s “Big 3” in Detroit, organizers are energized and optimistic that this third vote could be the one that secures union representation at the plant. Their confidence shouldn’t prevent union advocates and supporters from knocking on wood just to be sure, but there are strong signs that the UAW will prevail in the upcoming vote.

RIDING THE MOMENTUM

In early February, the UAW told the Times Free Press that more than 50% of VW employees had signed union authorization cards. And on Monday, the union said that number had jumped to 70%, a healthy majority of workers.

The union said that milestone marks the first time a nonunion auto plant publicly announced majority support among auto facilities where workers have begun organizing in recent months.

The unionization effort caught the attention of President Joe Biden, who, as many will recall, joined UAW workers on the picket line when they struck auto manufacturers last September.

On Tuesday, Biden chimed in on the UAW’s VW unionization effort.

“I congratulate the Volkswagen autoworkers in Chattanooga who filed for a union election with the UAW,” President Biden said in a statement on Monday. “As one of the world’s largest automakers, many Volkswagen plants internationally are unionized. As the most pro-union president in American history, I believe American workers, too, should have a voice at work. The decision whether to join a union belongs to the workers.”

Majority support and approval of the Commander-in-Chief will embolden the rank-and-file autoworker with the confidence that says “yes, I can earn a living wage for me and my family.” These latest developments also scare the tar out of right-to-work supporters.

Mark Mix, president of the Virginia-based National Right to Work Foundation, said his organization’s mission is “to eliminate coercive union power and compulsory unionism abuses.” He told TFP reporter Mike Pare that the UAW campaign at VW is a new model the union can emulate to organize foreign automakers in the region for the first time.

“We think this is the big one,” he said about the Chattanooga union drive by phone. “They’ll try it, and this is the model to go against original equipment manufacturers in the South.”

Oh, yes, it’s for sure the “big one.” Mix speaks of the UAW union campaign as a “model.” One thing is clear, the decision to unionize isn’t a scheme or template but a desire to get benefits and resources that workers who make up our country’s manufacturing backbone deserve.

Just ask the employees themselves.

In a Times editorial in December, third generation UAW member Yolanda Peoples talked about the importance of getting the word out to her fellow co-workers about the value of union representation. It appears that Peoples and the rest of the UAW group did just that.

In a statement to the Times Free Press, Peoples talked about how her UAW legacy has helped her understand the benefits of an union.

“I’ve seen how having our union enables us to make life better on the job and off,” she said. “We are a positive force in the plant. When we win our union, we’ll be able to bargain for a safer workplace, so people can stay on the job and the company can benefit from our experience.”

IT STARTS OR ENDS WITH VW

Unions give workers leverage in determining what they earn as well as how they are treated by their employers.

The rising tide of support for unions stems from workers seeking better compensation and benefits and also a voice in the workplace.

Isaac Meadows, a VW production assembly team member who supports the UAW, said a union can turn “a good job at Volkswagen into a great career.”

“Right now, we miss time with our families because so much of our paid time off is burned up during the summer and winter shutdowns,” he said in a statement to the Times Free Press. “We shouldn’t have to choose between our family and our job.”

Workers in the South want to have a bigger say in what happens to them, and they are learning that a union can give them that.

Finally, the South is primed to move away from the anti-worker mentality that has long prevailed in this region.

It’s time for the South to get on board the union train.

And it begins right here in Chattanooga.