Free Press Opinion: After VW vote it’s time for officials to step up

Where were we, Volkswagen of Chattanooga employees may be asking, before we were so rudely interrupted?

Workers at the VW assembly plant turned down the United Auto Workers bid to represent them in voting that concluded Friday night, ending a two-year courtship but a whirlwind last several weeks in which charges were leveled that outside anti-union forces influenced the vote.

The irony was the union itself was likely seen as the biggest outsider of all, a playground bully come to have its way with employees who already are paid better than many other autoworkers, who have repeatedly talked about what a fine company they work for and who work at what is considered the most modern, environmentally friendly automobile plant in the world.

“We felt like we were already being treated very well by Volkswagen in terms of pay and benefits and bonuses,” said Sean Moss, who voted against the UAW in its 712-626 loss. “We also looked at the track record of the UAW. Why buy a ticket on the Titanic?”

While union supporters decried comments by U.S. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, Gov. Bill Haslam and organizations such as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform as interfering, others saw the union as a heavy favorite since Volkswagen had agreed to remain neutral in the election but allowed the union access to its workers.

“This is like an alternate universe where everything is turned upside down,” Cliff Hammond, a labor lawyer at Nemeth Law PC in Detroit, who represents management clients but previously worked at the Service Employees International Union, told the Wall Street Journal. “Usually, companies fight” union drives. “This vote was essentially gift-wrapped for the union by Volkswagen.”

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which opposed the organizing bid, told Automotive News the union and Volkswagen’s German management “colluded for over two years to stack the deck against the workers” and allow a rapid-fire unionization election in the plant.

“If UAW union officials cannot win when the odds are so stacked in their favor,” he said in a statement, “perhaps they should reevaluate the product they are selling to workers.”

Even the biggest union booster of all, President Barack Obama, got involved Friday, though his remarks made little sense to those who understood the stakes.

He accused Republican politicians of being more concerned about, of all things, German shareholders than U.S. workers.

So it was the union’s game to lose.

“If this was going to work anywhere,” Kristin Dziczek, a labor specialist at the Center for Automotive Research told the Washington Post, “this is where it was going to work.”

Corker, who worked to bring the plant to Chattanooga and has remained in close contact with management for the company since, had remained mum about the election until he said pro-union factions seemed to imply his silence meant consent in what they were doing. So he made his intent clear he opposed the UAW.

“Needless to say, I am thrilled for the employees at Volkswagen and for our community and its future,” he said in a brief statement Friday night. “The UAW had all the advantages,” he told a newspaper. “Everybody but the UAW had both hands tied behind their backs. I’m just thankful the employees made the decision they made.”

It’s been suggested, even by UAW President Bob King, that the South is the last, best hope for the union, which has lost 75 percent of its membership since 1979 and now has less than 400,000 members. So while King and others aren’t ready to throw in the towel, its prospects didn’t improve with the vote.

“If the union can’t win [in Chattanooga], it can’t win anywhere,” Steve Silvia, a economics and trade professor at American University who has studied labor unions, told the Wall Street Journal.

Insiders said the UAW’s lack of progress in the South, where foreign automakers have 14 assembly plants, eight built in the past decade, but where it has been rebuffed at Daimler, Nissan and Honda plants, won’t help when it is negotiating for workers at Ford, GM and Chrysler in 2015.

“They have to organize at least one of the international automakers in order to attempt to regain bargaining power with the Detroit Three,” Dziczek told the Wall Street Journal.

“The balance of power in setting wages and benefits has shifted to the non-union sector,” she said to the Washington Post. “If they are bargaining for more of the work force, they can make more of an even playing field for labor costs.”

King had traveled to Germany, where he forged an alliance with German union IG Metall, and to Japan, Brazil and South Korea in hopes of getting unions around the world to combine forces, so Friday night’s vote was a bitter blow.

The threats against the company and the threats against the workers shifted things, he said, not ruling out a challenge to the vote.

“I think it’s a temporary setback,” King said. It’s a setback, but we don’t quit because of setbacks. We never have, we never will. We know what’s right. We’re going to fight for what’s right. We believe the workers here will ultimately prevail.”

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

But it may not be the last time a union is voted on at the plant. Even Corker suggested as much earlier this week, stating he wouldn’t have any problem with VW employees creating their own union.

Volkswagen, by law, would need a union to properly set up a type of works council it has sought for the Chattanooga plant that replicates ones at its other international sites (except those in China).

Frank Fischer, chief executive officer and president of Volkswagen Chattanooga, placed his hopes in a works council after the vote.

“Our employees have not made a decision that they are against a works council,” he said. “Throughout this process, we found great enthusiasm for the idea of an American-style works council both inside and outside our plant. Our goal continues to be to determine the best method for establishing a works council in accordance with the requirements of U.S. labor law to meet VW America’s production needs and serve our employees’ interests.”

With a union victory, the UAW would have negotiated wages and benefits for plant workers, with overtime rules, quality initiatives, health and safety guidelines, and other daily operations being handled by a works council.

While the 53.2 percent of “no” votes to the union was decisive, having been counted by National Labor Relations Board officials in front of representatives of pro- and anti-union forces, the results will not be final until they are certified.

Looking forward, while Chattanooga and Tennessee elected officials — hardly outsiders — had their say this week, they also implied the results of the voting would make a difference as to whether the Chattanooga plant would be the one to produce VW’s new seven-passenger crossover vehicle, the CrossBlue (due in 2016); whether the state would offer further incentives to VW; and whether suppliers would locate close to the area.

So, Republican politicians, that’s on you. Let’s hope we can count on you to use the same influence to help these things happen for Chattanooga as you did to help turn back the UAW.