wrote<\/a>\u00a0that they were seeing \u201cthe fallout of the Detroit Three strike with those automakers rethinking investments and cutting jobs. Putting businesses in our states in that position is the last thing we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe threats are implied. But compare that to 2014, when Tennessee Senator Bob Corker said the VW plant would get a new SUV production line if workers rejected the UAW, and state politicians threatened to withhold tax incentives should workers vote the UAW in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talking paper<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the lead-up to this week\u2019s election, supervisors would read verbatim from a company newsletter called \u201cThe Talking Paper,\u201d written in such a way that it cast doubts about the union without crossing over into unfair labor practice territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery time the \u2018Talking Paper\u2019 comes out,\u201d Costello said, \u201ceven my supervisor is like \u2018It\u2019s gonna take a while,\u2019 because they have to read every word as it is written. They cannot Cliff Notes it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, the lion\u2019s share of the unfair labor practice charges the UAW has filed in this organizing wave so far have been at Volkswagen. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the liars that they are when they say they\u2019re neutral,\u201d Costello said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To beat past union drives, the company promised to boost wages and address safety. But workers said these turned out to be empty promises. In 2019, Volkswagen brought back the company president who had originally opened the plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverybody loved Frank Fisher,\u201d said Peoples, who was hired in 2011. \u201cSo when he came and pleaded, and pretty much said, \u2018Give Volkswagen one more chance here in Chattanooga, we aren\u2019t finished yet, we’re going to make some changes, and I’ll be right here with you,\u2019 that pretty much swayed a lot of people and turned their votes into nos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople understand that they\u2019re just trying to trick us one more time like they did the two times previously,\u201d said Vaughn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Costello said Volkswagen shipped Fisher back to Germany soon after the vote. “The conditions in the plant slammed back to the brutal meat grinder that it always was,” he said. “And we have carried that with us into this campaign.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Renee sustained multiple surgeries in her long tenure at the plant. Going into the campaign, she said safety was her top concern. “I want to come out of work the same way I came in,” she said. But conditions at the plant have deteriorated to the point where she says workers agonize over whether they’ll come out of work alive or maimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You may lose a leg or a hand,” she said. “I got synthetic in my shoulder” from a rotator cuff tear. “I have a three-year-old granddaughter who I can’t pick up. So my life has changed, but I’m still going to keep going because I’ve put too much blood, sweat and tears into this plant.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gateway to the South<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein compared tonight\u2019s win to the Union Army\u2019s victory in Chattanooga in 1863, during the U.S. Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln declared it \u201cthe gateway to the South.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking Chattanooga, Lichtenstein said, \u201copened the door to the capture of Atlanta, the rest of Georgia, and the Carolinas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith UAW\u2019s win at Volkswagen, another gateway to the South has been opened. No longer will the wage-and-benefit standards of the million-strong auto workforce in the U.S. be set by the non-union portion of the industry. A militant and increasingly powerful UAW will set the standard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Costello, too, sees new horizons opening up. \u201cIf workers can unite in this country, I think we can move a lot,\u201d he said. “We could even effect change that goes beyond our workplace.”<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on The Real News Network<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf Volkswagen workers at plants in Germany and Mexico have unions, why not us?\u201d said one worker, ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1775,5942,453,5585,55805,35067],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1625956,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624005\/revisions\/1625956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}