Portside

Under intense anti-union political pressure, workers at the Chattanooga Volkswagen voted today on joining the United Auto Workers Union. On February 18, the tenure track and non-tenure track faculty who make up the University of Illinois-Chicago faculty union UICUF Local 6456 will walk out of the classroom and onto the picket line for a two-day strike.

George Goehl and National People’s Action spent the last 6 years developing a new organizing strategy. The organization now commits itself to a vision of a “new economy”: democratic and public control of finance, and cooperative and alternative forms of business ownership. NPA also envisions giving workers real decision-making power within corporations and giving the public the right to revoke the charters of corporations that provide too little social value.

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee are currently voting on union representation. While the company has remained neutral but national right-wing organizations and Republicans have been very vocal in calling for a no vote. A victory for the workers and the UAW would have major implications for union organizing in the South.

A union victory would be the beginning of an ambitious attempt by Volkswagen and the UAW to build a new model for the United States to compete globally. The election itself concludes one of the most innovative and important union-organizing drives in decades.

After months of protests, which were largely tolerated by the government, human rights in Cambodia have deteriorated rapidly this year.Global unions have announced a worldwide day of action in support of the detainees before a bail appeal hearing this week, while local unions have threatened another mass walkout.