Outsiders, Not Auto Plant, Battle U.A.W. in Tennessee

[Zanza]

And the big American temptation which is laziness. You've got such a huge domestic market there's less need to compete abroad.

That's arguably what Chrysler did, but GM and Ford went global decades before their Japanese or European competitors.

[Syt]

I always wonder if the kind of huge incentives given to automakers actually pay off for the states/cities that give them. The Chattanooga plant has about 2000 employees, so Volkswagen got subsidies of about $287.000 per employee. Assembly line workers making less than $40.000 will not exactly provide a huge lift to the local economy either. And whether the suppliers will create so many jobs around the plant that it eventually pays off is a risky bet. Especially if they ask for their own subsidies.

I can see it making sense in towns where you have one major employer on who everyone depends. If that company leaves the city may die (seen it back home when the Bundeswehr closed down many bases, or recently when the last large non-public employer announced they're shutting down 1,000+ jobs (in a town of 20,000; 30k-40k if you count the surrounding areas) in my old home town.

In the case of Chattanooga the dependency may not be so great, though.

[Syt]

And the big American temptation which is laziness. You've got such a huge domestic market there's less need to compete abroad.

That's arguably what Chrysler did, but GM and Ford went global decades before their Japanese or European competitors.

GM bought Opel in '29, and I think Ford also made the jump in the 1920s?

[Zanza]

Yes, GM also bought Vauxhall before Opel. I guess you could say they were lazy in bringing back what they learned overseas and they never leveraged their global reach into global car models until recently.

[Zanza]

Union Suffers Big Loss at Tennessee VW Plant
Volkswagen workers rejected the UAW by a vote of 712 to 626.

The United Auto Workers union suffered a crushing defeat Friday, falling short in an election in which it seemed to have a clear path to organizing workers at Volkswagen AG's plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The setback is a bitter defeat because the union had the cooperation of Volkswagen management and the aid of Germany's powerful IG Metall union, yet it failed to win a majority among the plants 1,550 hourly workers.

Volkswagen workers rejected the union by a vote of 712 to 626. The defeat raises questions about the future of a union that for years has suffered from declining membership and influence, and almost certainly leaves its president, Bob King, who had vowed to organize at least one foreign auto maker by the time he retires in June, with a tarnished legacy.

"If the union can't win [in Chattanooga], it can't win anywhere," said Steve Silvia, a economics and trade professor at American University who has studied labor unions.

The UAW said that "outside interference" affected the outcome of the vote. "Unfortunately, politically motivated third parties threatened the economic future of this facility and the opportunity for workers to create a successful operating model that that would grow jobs in Tennessee," Gary Casteel, the union official in charge of the VW campaign, said in a statement.

Under an agreement the UAW has with Volkswagen, it now must cease all organizing efforts aimed at the Chattanooga plant for at least a year.

A win would have marked the first time the union has been able to organize a foreign-owned auto plant in a Southern U.S. state, and would have been particularly meaningful, because the vote was set in a right-to-work state in the South, where antiunion sentiment is strong and all past UAW organizing drives at automobile plants have failed.

The Chattanooga workers had been courted steadily for nearly two years by both the UAW and the IG Metall union, which pushed Volkswagen management to open talks with the UAW and to refrain from trying to dissuade American workers from union representation.

Mr. King made forging alliances with overseas unions the centerpiece of his strategy after he was elected in 2010. The union now must come up with a way to halt its decline. It once represented 1.5 million workers, but now has about 400,000, and diminished influence, as a result of years of downsizing, layoffs and cutbacks by the three Detroit auto makers General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. F +1.06%  and Chrysler Group.

"The union needs new members. They have to organize the transplants or they don't have much of a future," said Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The election was also extraordinary because Volkswagen choose to cooperate closely with the UAW. Volkswagen allowed UAW organizers to campaign inside the factory—a step rarely seen in this or other industries.

"This is like an alternate universe where everything is turned upside down," said Cliff Hammond, a labor lawyer at Nemeth Law PC in Detroit, who represents management clients but previously worked at the Service Employees International Union. "Usually, companies fight" union drives, he added.

The union's loss adds to a long list of defeats for organized labor in recent years. States like Wisconsin enacted laws that cut the power of public-employee unions, and other states, including Michigan, home of the UAW, adopted right-to-work laws that allow workers to opt out of union membership if they choose.

The vote was held amid public campaigning against the union by Republican politicians, including Gov. Bill Haslam, and conservative activist groups. Conservative political groups, including one backed by antitax activist Grover Norquist, put up anti-union billboards around Chattanooga. A small but determined group of workers who oppose the UAW also worked to tilt their colleagues against the union, an effort that ultimately proved successful.

"I'm thrilled for the employees and thrilled for the community," Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker said in a telephone interview, adding that he's "sincerely overwhelmed" by the result.

The UAW had appeared to have strong chances in the election because both Volkswagen and the IG Metall union wanted the Chattanooga plant to have a works council, a formal committee of both union and nonunion employees who negotiate with management on day-to-day working matters at the plant.

Works councils are standard in German workplaces—almost all other Volkswagen facilities around the world have one. In the U.S., however, it appears to many labor-law experts that they can only be implemented legally if workers are represented by an outside union.

Since both Volkswagen and IG Metall have expressed a strong desire to have a works council in Chattanooga, the auto maker chose to work with the UAW. In addition to letting union representatives into the plant, Volkswagen kept members of management from expressing any views on the vote, and agreed to coordinate its public statements with the union during the election campaign.

"This vote was essentially gift-wrapped for the union by Volkswagen," Mr. Hammond, the labor lawyer, said.

The chief executive of the plant, Frank Fischer, said in a statement that Volkswagen will continue to search for a method of establishing a works council.

The works council concept also proved a winner for some Chattanooga workers. Jonathan Walden, 39 years old, earns about $19.50 an hour—about $4 an hour more than starting workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler—but he voted for the union because he wants a works council. "I don't know why more companies don't do this," said Mr. Walden, who works in the paint shop.

But more workers were persuaded to vote against the union by the UAW's past of bitter battles with management, costly labor contracts and complex work rules. "If the union comes in, we'll have a divided work force," said Cheryl Hawkins, 44, an assembly line worker with three sons. "It will ruin what we have."

Other UAW opponents said they dislike the union's support of politicians who back causes like abortion rights and gun control that rub against the conservative bent of Southern states like Tennessee. Still others objected to paying dues to a union from Detroit that is aligned with Volkswagen competitors like GM and Ford.

"I just don't trust them," said Danielle Brunner, 23, who has worked at the plant for nearly three years and makes about $20 an hour—about $5 an hour more than new hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants.

The no-UAW vote raises questions on how the union proceeds now in separate efforts to organize other foreign-owned plants in the South, and whether international cooperation can provide any additional leverage for labor unions.

The UAW's alliance with IG Metall was forged over the last several years by Mr. King, who traveled to Germany, Japan, Brazil and South Korea in hopes of getting unions around the world to combine forces.

For the last two years the union has also been working to build support at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., and at a Nissan Motor Co. plant in Canton, Miss. Its chances there now seem diminished, in view of how those companies are less willing to cooperate with the UAW than Volkswagen.

At Mercedes, workers who want UAW representation recently filed complaints to the National Labor Relations Board alleging they have been harassed by management because of their efforts to build union support. Daimler AG, the parent of Mercedes-Benz, has denied the charges.

The UAW's loss in Chattanooga also seems likely to complicate contract talks it will have with the Detroit auto makers in 2015. Right now, GM, Ford and Chrysler pay veteran workers about $28 an hour, and new hires about $15 an hour, and the UAW wants to narrow that gap.

But without the ability to push wages higher at foreign-owned car plants, the UAW is likely to have little leverage in Detroit, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Labor & Industry Group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"They have to organize at least one of the international auto makers in order to attempt to regain bargaining power with the Detroit Three," she added.

[Ed Anger]

 

[Iormlund]

I don't understand the use of this election. Why can't the workers just choose their own representatives and have those join the works council?

The way it works here is you can choose whoever you want, whether he is a affiliated or not with a union. The latter just makes things easier (since by virtue of their size they can have people dedicated full time to labour law, pension auditing, etc).

[Zanza]

Same here. We have an election for our work council soon and there is seven lists of people, only two of which are from unions. I'll vote for one of the independent guys.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think it comes down to competition here. Less than 12% of Americans are unionized, and if you strip out the massive public sector unions (employees who frankly should not even be allowed to be in unions) it's an even smaller portion. I know lots of blue collar guys in traditional union fields, and almost none of them are pro-union. The only pro-union blue collar guy I know is a retired coal miner who dislikes everything about the UMWA except for the fact that UMWA mines are safe, and in the coal industry that's a pretty serious concern. Union mines wouldn't allow a lot of the shenanigans that operators pull leading up to big disasters like the Massey explosion a few years ago that killed 30 miners, for example. He still had most of the same complaints about the union aside from that.

Why do many blue collar workers dislike organizations that on paper help them out? Because the way we did unionization in this country basically guaranteed unions would become organizations that benefit the few at the top of the union and were unaccountable to its members. In most of Europe it's my understanding if you have say, a steel factory, you could have multiple unions/trade organizations that represent steelworkers operating in that same plant. If one of the unions does a bad job, you can switch membership to another, voting with your feet so to speak. The way labor relations laws were crafted in the United States, it's basically a matter of once a single union gets into a facility then basically the whole hourly workforce has to be represented by that union and can't be represented by any other. Once in, it's almost impossible to de-unionize a factory, and since you can't have a competing union it means union leadership basically has no reason to be  truly accountable to its members.

Do they do stuff for the benefit of their members? Yes, but the fact that they are unaccountable leads to them being highly corrupt. We also have a bad practice of our unions not wanting their members to be accountable for their actions. At a factory when you come in on time every day, work safely every day, and a guy who shows up late every day and then one day shows up with a BAC of .09 and causes an accident how do you think you feel if "your" union successfully protects that guy and keeps him from losing his job? That's how unions operate here and that's why lots of blue collar workers are willing to trade some of the genuine positives of organized labor just to escape all the negatives associated with it.

[CountDeMoney]

The only pro-union blue collar guy I know is a retired coal miner who dislikes everything about the UMWA except for the fact that UMWA mines are safe, and in the coal industry that's a pretty serious concern.

Gee, imagine that.

Why do many blue collar workers dislike organizations that on paper help them out?

The capitalist model has managed to convince the American worker dating to the late 19th century that unions are a foreign and alien concept, one contrary to the American work ethos--that Protestant work ethic that, if you work really, really hard, it will see you through to the American Dream--and that all unions smack of European socialism, intellectual elitism, reactionary and revolutionary politics and are therefore suspect.  So it's not surprising that, after being beaten over the head for well over a century with business-friendly propaganda and a cultural mindset that champions and celebrates the entrepreneur unshackled by government interference and pro-labor concepts, the American worker has had an historic and consistent distrust and loathing of the concept of joining a union, and pooh-pooh them with the vague recollections of European civil wars from their high school educations and every GOP politician since the '80 elections.

Accountability?  Union corruption can't hold a candle to managerial corruption, not now, not ever. But that's not much different than the American pastime of hating on black single mothers on food stamps for ripping off the nation, when they can't touch the amount of damage Wall Street does to America every year.  But that's the benefit of years of successful political demonization for you, because we all know how historically benign and benevolent your average American employer truly, truly is when it comes to the common worker, the safety and equality of the work environment and such nuisances as compensation.

Even to this day, Americans still actually and sincerely believe that if they do the right thing their employers will, in the end, do right by them.  LOL, suckers.

Teachers, auto workers, state workers, nurses, zomg they're destroying the very fabric of America with their unnecessary unions.  Unless you're in law enforcement, and then you're just an ignorant ass hypocritical fucktard.

At a factory when you come in on time every day, work safely every day, and a guy who shows up late every day and then one day shows up with a BAC of .09 and causes an accident how do you think you feel if "your" union successfully protects that guy and keeps him from losing his job?

Link, plz. 

[Berkut]

That is some high quality hysteria right there Seedy.

[CountDeMoney]

Don't you have a unionized teacher to run over or something?

[jimmy olsen]

The capitalist model has managed to convince the American worker dating to the late 19th century that unions are a foreign and alien concept,

That's not true. One only has to look at the union membership from the 30s to the 50s to know it's not.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Accountability?  Union corruption can't hold a candle to managerial corruption, not now, not ever. But that's not much different than the American pastime of hating on black single mothers on food stamps for ripping off the nation, when they can't touch the amount of damage Wall Street does to America every year.  But that's the benefit of years of successful political demonization for you, because we all know how historically benign and benevolent your average American employer truly, truly is when it comes to the common worker, the safety and equality of the work environment and such nuisances as compensation.

Not really on point, because if I'm a blue collar worker and what you say about management is true that sucks, but I doubt I'm going to find a work place where I can work on a factory assembly line and not report to a corporate manager. There is no real choice about whether to have a manager or not, and if most companies have hostile management as you assert then that's basically not something that would make me decide to work for Volkswagen over Honda or whatever.

But a union, I don't have to have. Just because management sucks doesn't mean a blue collar worker is going to want to kick some of his pay to an organization that appears to be more concerned with making union bosses rich and donating money to Democrat political campaigns. I think if workers had a genuine choice between several unions, as they do in Europe, you'd see better behaving unions. In America the model is built around the concept that a single union fights to win unionization at a plant, and when they do they basically now have a monopoly on labor supply at that plant--and the workers they represent can't easily throw them out, and they certainly can't typically opt to have another union represent their interests if they believe the certified union is doing a bad job.

[CountDeMoney]

The capitalist model has managed to convince the American worker dating to the late 19th century that unions are a foreign and alien concept,

That's not true. One only has to look at the union membership from the 30s to the 50s to know it's not.

Funny how that coincides with the series of pro-labor Supreme Court rulings of the 1930's that actually made it safe to join unions and ensure their civil liberties, free of the arbitrary and illegal prosecutions, seizures, and deportations of the decades earlier by the US government and the Famous But Incompetent.