UAW Says Volkswagen Reneged on Deal to Recognize Union

[Omaha Steve]

Source: ABC News-AP

By ERIK SCHELZIG

A signed agreement shows that Volkswagen officials reneged on a pledge to recognize the United Auto Workers without another vote at the German automaker's lone U.S. plant in Tennessee, a top union official said Tuesday.

Gary Casteel, the UAW's secretary-treasurer, released the 2014 document stating that Volkswagen would recognize the UAW as the representative of its members in exchange for the union dropping a challenge to the outcome of a union election at the plant in Chattanooga.

"Volkswagen never fulfilled its commitments to recognize the union as a representative of its members," Castell said in a conference call. "The unfulfilled commitment is at the heart of the ongoing disagreement between the company and the union."

The union said the written agreement for the company to "recognize the UAW as a 'members union'" stemmed from negotiations led by Volkswagen's then-chief financial officer, Hans Dieter Poetsch, who has since been named chairman amid the company's diesel emissions cheating scandal.

FULL story at link below.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/uaw-volkswagen-reneged-deal-recognize-union-40010948

[NNadir]

1. This is a very sleazy company.

[riversedge]

2. drats

[fasttense]

3. Yet the labor union in Germany has strong veto power on the board

So, why is the German union Not supporting their brethren?

Makes me think that the Volkswaggon labor union in Germany has been bought off.

[Eugene]

4. Volkswagen will not help UAW union organize Tennessee plant: HR chief

Source: Reuters

World | Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:22pm EDT

Volkswagen will not help UAW union organize Tennessee plant: HR chief

Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) will not assist the United Auto Workers' efforts to organize its plant in Tennessee and reaffirmed its resistance to the union's demands that it start talks over wages for a small fraction of the factory's workforce, its human resources chief said.

"If the UAW wants to organize the American auto workers at our plant in Chattanooga it has to do so by itself, like the IG Metall does it in Germany," Volkswagen human resources chief Karlheinz Blessing said on Wednesday. "The VW management board or the IG Metall cannot handle this for the UAW."

Late last year, a majority of the maintenance, or skilled trades, workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to be represented by the UAW. The vote marked a rare victory for the union in the U.S. South, where it has fought many unsuccessful battles to organize nonunionized auto plants.

But the full plant, which has about 1,500 hourly workers, rejected UAW representation in a vote the union narrowly lost in February 2014.

The UAW worked closely with the German union IG Metall in fostering a good relationship with VW before that vote. IG Metall has much more power within VW than the UAW has at any major automaker.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-labor-tennessee-idUSKCN0Z82QQ