'Victories will be nothing short of an earthquake': Can the UAW win in the South? | American unions

The United Auto Workers (UAW) has launched an ambitious campaign to unite 13 non-union automakers across the U.S., and the first big test begins Wednesday when 4,300 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, begin voting on whether to unionize. Many VW workers expect victory.

“We will win,” said Lisa Elliott, a VW quality control employee. “We have the momentum. I know it's going to be this.” [historic] It happened.”

Elliott has worked at VW since 2019 when the UAW narrowly lost a union vote in Chattanooga, but she says the mood today is very different. She said most workers are enthralled to unionize because of the UAW's big victory in a strike last fall and a contract battle with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which owns Jeep and Chrysler.

“I support the union because we don't have a voice right now, and there are some serious issues that need to be addressed,” Elliott said. “If the union wins here, it will certainly encourage workers in other factories.” Voting in Chattanooga continues from Wednesday to Friday.

The UAW campaign targeted 13 companies, including Toyota, Tesla and Hyundai, which have nearly 150,000 workers at 36 non-union plants. After Volkswagen, the next vote will be at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, where a large majority of the 5,000 workers signed cards demanding a vote on unionization.

“I have every confidence that the union campaign will be successful,” said Jeremy Kimbrel, a worker at the Vance Mercedes plant since 1999. “The majority of workers have already expressed support for a union, and very few are publicly opposed.” The National Labor Relations Board has not yet set a date for a vote.

“A win at Volkswagen would make a win at Mercedes more likely,” said Joseph McCarten, a labor historian at Georgetown University and co-author of Labor in America: A History. “Victories at both Volkswagen and Mercedes would be nothing short of an earthquake. This would be the biggest breakthrough in private sector regulation in decades. This means that the anti-union citadel [in the south] Which repelled the effort after the organizing effort was hacked.

Several important developments make victories more likely this time, says Stephen Sylvia, a political science professor at American University who has written a book on failed union campaigns at Volkswagen, Mercedes and Nissan plants in the South. “The UAW strikes last year show that the UAW can succeed,” he said. “It was truly a turning point for the UAW.”

For 30 years, Sylvia said, the UAW focused on fighting austerity and often agreed to compromises, but “when Sean Fine came in as president of the UAW… [in March 2023]He turned things around and focused on achieving gains for the workers.”

The UAW's deal with Detroit automakers includes 25% raises over four and a half years — more than the total raises won in the past 22 years. The contracts also call for improving pensions, restoring the cost-of-living allowance, increasing the top wage to $40 an hour, and increasing starting pay by 68%.

“If they were campaigning for a union, they could now point to the contract settlement last fall and say, ‘This is what the union can do for you,’” Sylvia said. “They couldn't say that before.”

The other change is that anti-union politicians in the South, at least so far, have not campaigned as aggressively against the union as in the past — perhaps because the Republican Party is trying too hard to appeal to blue-collar voters. Moreover, GOP governors are no longer in a strong position to intimidate workers by threatening to deprive their factories of large subsidies, thus jeopardizing factory survival. The main reason VW workers voted against unionizing in 2014 — 712 to 626 — was because then-Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and state lawmakers threatened to withhold $300 million in subsidies to build a second production line at the Chattanooga plant if Freeze workers. Vote for the union. Volkswagen workers feared that if their plant had only one production line, it might not be able to continue. Now there is not much fear of the factory closing because VW has added an expensive production line in 2022 to manufacture the all-electric ID.4 compact SUV.

To be sure, southern politicians spoke out against the UAW. “That would be a big mistake,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said [the VW] “Alabama has become a national leader in automobile manufacturing, and all of this has been achieved without a unionized workforce… It is unfortunate that Alabama's model of economic success is under attack,” wrote Kate Ivey, Alabama's governor, “for risking their futures” through unions. .

Fine responded by saying that Ivey “had the audacity to say that the South’s economic model was under attack.” She's right! It's under attack because the workers are tired of the absurdity.

Sean Fine, president of the UAW, during a Senate committee hearing in Washington, D.C., in March. Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Under Fine, the UAW abandoned the top-down style of organizing, which increased the union's chances of winning. The UAW has allowed workers at Volkswagen and Mercedes to have more control over their campaigns, and has spread rapidly to collect pro-union cards, and the VW plant has 300 volunteer organizing leaders.

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“Clearly the UAW has taken a very aggressive and creative approach to organizing and collective bargaining,” said Daniel Kornfeld, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “This is a big change.”

The other big change is that the UAW has come a long way in shedding its reputation for corruption. A corruption scandal in which UAW officials embezzled more than $3 million and the prison sentences of two former UAW presidents helped cause the UAW to lose interest in VW in 2019. As a result of the scandal, the UAW agreed to have a federal monitor, and to serve the government. The first time it established direct election of its president. Fine, a maverick, won on an anti-concession, anti-corruption platform.

“I think Fine is a great guy,” said Kelsey Smith, a paint shop worker at the Volkswagen plant. “I believe in his vision for the union. He supports workers.”

Smith is very impressed with what Fain and the UAW have accomplished in their confrontation with the Detroit automakers. When the UAW lost to Volkswagen in 2014 and 2019, “the union didn’t have anything to look forward to for workers,” Smith said. “And with what they accomplished with the Big Three, we feel they can make it happen in the South.”

Dekiri Steele, a labor law professor at the University of Alabama, sees some significant changes in the South. “People in Alabama began to see that the union could win,” she said. “At one point, no one would have heard about it, and it's a futile exercise. I don't think it's looked at that way anymore. Thanks to social media, people now have more access than ever to People who live outside the South can see that people in unionized environments have a lot more than they do and that can influence people to say, “How can I have this too?”

At Volkswagen, a big problem is that many workers get between 96 to 144 hours of paid vacation per year (about 12 to 18 full-time days), but when VW closes the plant for a week or two during the year To perform maintenance, workers must use their paid vacation if they want to be paid for those days the plant is closed. Volkswagen workers also complain that they do not receive paid sick leave.

At Mercedes, workers complain that the Vance factory adopted a distasteful two-tier wage system in January 2020 and has offered few raises for several years. After the start of the union campaign, Mercedes concluded the second phase and announced the long-awaited raises. However, Volkswagen and Mercedes workers remain upset because they earn several dollars an hour less than UAW members.

“One thing we say is: Finish the Alabama opponent,” said Kimbrel, the Mercedes worker. “We've shown that we can make cars as good as anyone in the world. The time is over when companies can go south and pay people less and treat them worse. We're sending the message, 'Come on down.' Take advantage of the skills our workers have to offer, “We will help you make profits, but if you go down, don't take advantage of the workers here. End the discount.”

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