How Everything Changed at Volkswagen in Chattanooga

[Omaha Steve]

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-03-28-how-everything-changed-volkswagen-chattanooga-uaw/

This union drive by the UAW looks very different from two other attempts in 2014 and 2019.

by Mike Elk

March 28, 2024



Workers assemble Volkswagen Passat sedans at the German automaker’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, June 12, 2013.

This piece is cross-posted from Payday Report, a website about the labor movement.

On a cold, drizzly Valentine’s Day in 2014, I spent the night at a UAW party at the old wood-paneled IBEW hall next to Chattanooga’s brand-new Volkswagen plant as workers eagerly awaited union election results.

One Volkswagen worker passed around a moonshine bottle as nearly 200 people crammed the union hall. The energy was lit as people seemed optimistic that the union would win.

“I am excited,” Volkswagen worker Justin King told me as he was putting on his cowboy boots to get ready for the party.

Earlier in the evening, at his house in Orchard Knob, labor and community organizer Michael Gilliland was nervous. Something seemed off; Chattanooga had been blanketed with unprecedented anti-union TV ads, and support for the union had dissipated quickly in the final days.

The party at the IBEW hall quickly died when the vote was announced as 626 for the union and 712 against.

FULL story at link above.