The Auto Workers Union sets goals for southern expansion

After the United Auto Workers won an election victory at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, the organization hopes the victory is a taste of what may lie in store throughout the South, a region historically hostile to unions. What makes us optimistic is that for the primary time a trade union group won the electoral vote in an assembly plant positioned within the south run by a foreign automotive company.

As reported by the UAW he won his election with 73% of the votes after blocking in 2014 and 2019. It is value noting that before the vote, the plant was the one Volkswagen plant on this planet that didn’t have worker representation, i.e. union representation. After the historic victory, UAW President Shawn Fein celebrated with organizers in Tennessee, telling the group, “But you all said, ‘Watch this.’ You guys are the leader. We intend to take this fight to Mercedes and everywhere else. ”

The Mercedes fight Fein mentions is two Mercedes-Benz factories positioned in Tuscaloosa, Alabamawhich experts like Harry Katz, a labor relations professor at Cornell University, say can be harder to unionize since it lies deeper within the South than Tennessee.

“They’re going to have a much tougher road in the workplace, where they’re going to face aggressive management resistance and even community resistance, than in Chattanooga,” Katz said. “VW management has not aggressively sought to avoid unionization. Mercedes can be a superb test. It’s the deeper south.

Coming back to Katz’s point six Southern governors have already warned employees against joining the UAW union, including Alabama Governor Kay Ivey. The other governors who signed on to the joint statement are Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

The letter framed their concern as concern for employees, as the primary paragraph reads: “We, the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, are extremely concerned concerning the disinformation-fueled union campaign and intimidation tactics the UAW has dropped at our states . As governors, we’ve got a responsibility to our constituents to talk out once we see special interests attempting to creep into our state and threaten our jobs and the values ​​we live by.”

In contrast to the governors’ claims that unionization is anti-worker, later within the letter: talked to employees in Tennesseewho voted in favor of creating a trade union. Southern governors often used incentives to lure foreign automakers to the region and warranted them that they’d not must take care of the UAW unless they selected to accomplish that, in accordance with reports.

For essentially the most part, auto employees have been paid so well previously that employees have traditionally felt the union doesn’t really profit them, but with the UAW’s $40 million investment within the South, that sentiment may change. Quinton North, a black worker on the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, said Fein’s leadership was the explanation he modified his vote from “no” to “yes.” “He (Fein) really showed who he is – he is for the workers.”

President Joe Biden also addressed Republican governors’ attempts to make use of fear-mongering tactics, issuing a press release affirming the best of American employees to decide on whether or not a union represents their best interests. “I want to make it clear to the Republican governors who tried to overturn this vote: There is nothing to fear that American workers will use their vote and their right to form a union if they choose to do so.”