By William Boston in Berlin and Ben Foldy in Detroit
The United Auto Workers is wrapping up a vote Friday at
Volkswagen AG's auto factory in Tennessee that will determine
whether the 84-year-old union will be successful in achieving a
long sought-after goal: organizing its first foreign-owned car
plant in the U.S. South.
Around 1,700 of the factory's 3,800 employees are eligible to
vote in the election. Workers began casting ballots on Wednesday on
whether they want the UAW to represent them in collective
bargaining with the German auto giant, and results are expected
late Friday night.
If the UAW prevails in unionizing the plant, it will be a
historic win for a labor organization that has spent decades trying
to build influence outside of Detroit and represent more factory
workers across the car-manufacturing sector. The union's
membership, which hit a peak of 1.5 million workers in 1979, has
fallen to about 400,000 last year as Detroit's big three car
companies have closed U.S. plants and moved more factory work to
Mexico and other countries, where labor is cheaper. While the
foreign-car companies build millions of vehicles each year in the
U.S., none of their assembly plants are unionized. Most reside in
right-to-work Southern states, where antiunion sentiment runs
strong.
"It's a big deal for the union as far as their growth and, they
think, their future," said Art Schwartz, president of consulting
firm Labor and Economics Associates.
A victory in Tennessee also would strengthen the UAW's hand
ahead of contract talks this fall with Ford Motor Co., General
Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV for new four-year labor
agreements at their U.S. factories. In the past, the Detroit
companies have used wage comparisons at nonunion plants, which
typically pay workers less, to argue against pay increases for
their own factory workers, said Mr. Schwartz, a former labor
negotiator at GM.
The UAW tried once before to organize workers at VW's only U.S.
auto plant, holding a unionization vote in 2014 that was narrowly
defeated, 712 to 626. Since then, the union has established a union
hall, UAW Local 42, near the factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., and won
a vote to organize a smaller group of skilled tradespeople at the
factory -- a victory Volkswagen has challenged.
Volkswagen, one of the world's largest car companies by sales,
has union representation at its other factories world-wide except
for China, where there is state control of labor markets. Half of
the company's supervisory board is composed of labor leaders from
Germany's powerful IG Metall trade union. The Tennessee factory,
which opened in 2012 as the U.S. car market rebounded following the
recession, builds the Passat sedans and a new large SUV model,
called the Atlas.
During the 2014 vote, Volkswagen worked with the UAW to
coordinate public statements and worker communications at the plant
about the election. State politicians and antiunion groups,
however, campaigned against the UAW, an effort the union blamed for
the loss.
But this time around, the car company has been more active in
trying to convince workers a nonunionized factory is a better
option. Volkswagen has established a website dedicated to the
election that emphasizes improvements made for workers at the
plant, as well as links to antiunion editorials and news articles
about a U.S. Justice Department investigation into corruption
allegations at the UAW. The UAW has said the misconduct was limited
to a few individuals and it has cooperated with the government
probe.
State and local politicians also have weighed in on this latest
Tennessee vote, trying to dissuade workers from joining a
union.
In an April visit to VW's plant, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee used
remarks to employees to advocate for a union-free workplace,
attracting cheers and jeers from the crowd, according to comments
recorded during the meeting and confirmed by his office. A "no"
vote would be "in the best interest of the workers of Volkswagen
and really for the economics of our state," Mr. Lee told reporters
during an event in Tennessee last month.
The IG Metall trade union has supported the UAW's efforts,
criticizing Volkswagen management for trying to sway the vote in
the weeks leading up to the election.
"Antiunion leaflets have been passed around in the plant;
supervisors are asking [employees] to give management a chance to
solve the problems without the union," a spokeswoman for IG Metall
said in an email.
A Volkswagen spokesman said the company will remain neutral
throughout the process and respects employees' right to decide. It
has highlighted recent moves to address worker concerns, including
raising wages and reducing overtime, and emphasized it is investing
more than $800 million into the factory to make it a hub for
building electric vehicles.
The UAW, which represents about 155,000 hourly workers at U.S.
factories operated by Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler, has been trying
to convince Chattanooga's workers they deserve the same voice in
how their plant is run that is afforded to other VW employees
around the world.
A union contract would provide consistency around plant policies
on overtime and promotions, said Steve Cochran, president of UAW
Local 42 and a worker at the Chattanooga plant.
"People want to have a structure and they want the rules to be
set; that way, they know what to expect when they come into work,"
Mr. Cochran said.
As Toyota Motor Corp., Daimler AG and other foreign-based car
companies have shifted factory work to the U.S., they have elected
to build large assembly plants in right-to-work states in the
South, far from the union strongholds in Michigan.
The move has helped bring thousands of new jobs to states that
have long struggled to attract manufacturers, but the wages have
historically been lower than those at Detroit's unionized
factories.
Factory wages at the Detroit car companies top out at close to
$30 an hour for longer-tenured workers. At Volkswagen, the top wage
is $23.50 an hour for assembly-line employees.
The UAW has made numerous attempts to unionize workers at the
foreign-owned car factories, including holding organizing drives at
Toyota and Nissan Motor Co. But the efforts have yet to yield
results, and local politicians often warn workers a vote to
unionize a plant could hurt future job security.
The union has had more success organizing smaller auto-parts
suppliers and employees working in other industries, such as higher
education and gambling.
Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com and Ben Foldy
at ben.foldy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 14, 2019 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.