UNIONS - Volkswagen Plant in Tennessee Going Union? (updated)

Another keen-jerk, anti-worker (read non-rich citizen), Republican state reaction.  It's the Republican view that the peons don't have the right to VOTE to organize and better their lot.

"Possible unionization by Volkswagen auto workers spurs political backlash in Tennessee" PBS Newshour 2/13/2014

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  They started voting yesterday in the snow at the V.W. plant in Chattanooga, at issue, whether to join the United Auto Workers.  The vote comes in an era when many foreign automakers have moved to Southern states, where overall union participation is low, and as UAW membership has fallen dramatically, from 1.5 million members in 1979 to just over 382,000 in 2012.

JUSTIN KING, Volkswagen Employee:  I’m proud to be working at Volkswagen.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Hoping for a win in Chattanooga, the union has released YouTube videos of V.W. employees who are voting yes.

JUSTIN KING:  Volkswagen will be stronger when they come together with the UAW, because that combines not only Volkswagen’s history of working with labor, but it also adds in UAW’s experience of working in the U.S. market.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Volkswagen itself has remained officially neutral on the question.  But it does want to set up a German-style works council to allow employees and management to collaborate on decision-making.  Labor experts say by law that means the plant must first unionize.  But support for the union is hardly unanimous.

SEN. BOB CORKER, R-Tenn.:  I think everyone in the community knows that I have tremendous concerns about the UAW being a part of our community in this way.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Among others, Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker, once the mayor of Chattanooga, and a group called the National Right to Work group (conservative anti-union shill) argue that unionization will jeopardize jobs.  And Republicans who control the state legislature have threatened to withdraw millions of dollars in tax incentives for Volkswagen if the UAW wins.

"Union suffers significant loss in Tennessee" PBS Newshour 2/15/2014

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted to reject what would have been United Auto Workers’ first successful organization of workers at a foreign automaker in the South.  Jim Efstathiou of Bloomberg News speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about the significance of the vote.