VW Wants to Unionize Its TN Plant, but Anti-Union Beltway Insiders are Trying to Stop Them

[Teamster Jeff]

>>>
Attempts to unionize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN are meeting fierce retaliation from anti-union forces inside the beltway.

VW officials have expressed interest in unionization ahead of expansions at their East Tennessee facility. The United Auto Workers (UAW) are working with VW to create a union model that closely resembles successful Germany efforts, where management and workers come together to meet common goals.

VW officials at the plant have openly discussed unionization and a healthy relationship seems to have spawned from that. Yet, anti-union politicians are painting unionization as a death stroke for Tennessee workers. These tactics have ramped up in lockstep with encouraging signs from the labor talks.
>
Now, Washington insiders fighting on behalf of the right-wing are filling the region with anti-union propaganda and looking to recruit Tea Party members to pass it out.

Matt Patterson, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center For Economic Freedom, said his group has put up a billboard on Highway 153, just a few miles from the VW plant, to help get its message across about the dangers of unions and the UAW.
>
But in Tennessee, jobs apparently aren’t a good enough reason to shirk ideology. Gov. Bill Haslam says he is wary of what unionization at VW would mean to other industries across the state. He must mean that the precedent of actually treating workers fairly would be set and thus undermine Tennessee’s sterling image as a bastion of anti-worker policies.

The alternative for VW is to move their operation to Mexico. This would be bittersweet for pro-unionists as Haslam and his anti-union lot in Washington would effectively become accomplices to outsourcing. They care little, though, I’m sure. This is American politics: Jobs can easily be created and workers can have their voices strengthened, but a few billionaires are willing to spend a couple bucks to throw it all away.
>>>

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2013/06/28/vw-wants-to-unionize-its-tn-plant-but-anti-union-beltway-insiders-are-trying-to-stop-them/

[Astrad]

1. Thanks for this

it's quite astounding. The ideological disease that infects these RW politicians is so extreme that even when the company and the workers WANT to unionize they attack it. Sickening.

[liberal N proud]

2. They are protecting their corporate pimps.

Nothing more.

[reflection]

3. I have been fairly close to the VW Chattanooga process

and it's been a nightmare for them. I imagine they are starting to really regret committing to Chattanooga.

Earlier this year we had a 'guns-in-parking-lots' bill that had been fought over bitterly for the last 4 years. The teabaggers were terrified of marauding criminals in the parking lots where they work, even though there was no data, anecdotal or otherwise, that suggests there is anything going on like that. Large employers such as FedEx and VW were resisting it fiercely because they were wary of shootings in their parking lots that would expose them to liability.

VW told Governor Haslam the bill as is was a deal-breaker, and a provision was written in at the last minute which gives the employer carte blanche to enact their own policies if desired. So that was another fight VW had to wage just to get some folks working here in TN.

I'm told by a friend who is even closer to it than I am that the higher-ups at VW are very disillusioned at the whole process and that they never envisioned how fucked up TN is. You can take that with a grain of salt, but he says during the meetings where all parties are present, the German management continues to be completely taken aback by their hosts and it shows up constantly in the questioning and the facial expressions. TN must have given the store away for VW not to have walked.

[mountain grammy]

4. Dear VW, Please move your plant to Colorado!

We have our share of right wingers, but this crap is even beyond them (I think,)

Sincerely yours,
Mountain Grammy

[47of74]

5. Or here to Iowa.

[DRoseDARs]

6. Am I reading that right? Volkswagen MANAGEMENT is trying to unionize the workers? nt

[Teamster Jeff]

7. VW management is open to something like they have in Germany

Which is some type of "German style labor board" consisting of management and workers within the plant. It sounds like VW is a least open to negotiations and not as hostile as the Republicans who run Tennessee.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11172321

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11172328