If workers vote to join a union at Volkswagen's Tennessee plant this week, they'll be changing America's labor relations for the better - Harold Meyerson. (Voting started yesterday, Feb. 12, and continues through tomorrow, Feb. 15) Lane Windham looks at past labor and UAW organizing efforts in the south.
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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.
Who's funding the funder?
Huge victory for organizing workers. A Majority of workers at the Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have signed cards with the United Auto Workers (UAW) declaring that they want a union. Union representation at Volkswagen would signal a sea change in labor relations among foreign automakers who have resisted unions at their plants in the South.
Volkswagen is working with the United Automobile Workers at its Chattanooga, Tenn., assembly plant on how to unionize the plant and create a German-style works council there, the president of the labor union said on Friday.
How would a German-style labor organization work in the United States?
For more than a year, leaders with the United Auto Workers Union have been eyeing Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant, and reports this week that the organization has talked with Volkswagen AG executives about a German-style labor board at the local plant have raised a number of questions.
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