Why Did VW Workers Vote To Unionize?
After two failed attempts, what made this election at Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga different?
By Peter List, Editor | April 23, 2024
Despite its losses in 2014 and 2019, the United Auto Workers (UAW) surprised few onlookers when it won its “historic” election at Volkswagen (VW) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Friday night.
For people who follow such votes, the only question was what the union’s margin of victory would be. After all, the company had helped the UAW in at least one prior attempt and reportedly remained “neutral” in this election. As it turns out, about 73% of the VW workers who voted—nearly 650 eligible VW workers did not vote at all—chose to unionize.
So, what was different this time that helped the UAW win? It looks like a combination of younger workers and more progressive, “eat the rich” rhetoric that definitely won the day, but that likely will not bring union members the same kind of bargaining power that will force VW to agree to a Detroit Three-type of contract.
For those not familiar with the history of the UAW in Chattanooga, perhaps some background will help explain the UAW’s victory in Tennessee last week.
Volkswagen is not an ‘anti-union’ company.
In 20141, with the German union IG Metall on its board—the union that was accused of trying to coerce employees into unionizing, before backtracking—Volkswagen management in Chattanooga actually aided the UAW in its efforts to unionize the plant.
In fact, in 2014, Volkswagen and the UAW had actually negotiated a “sweetheart deal” behind employees’ backs that gave the UAW access to employees, their information, as well as the ability to come into the plant and speak to workers.
Notwithstanding the legally-dubious promise of a German-style works council, in exchange for “neutrality,” the UAW had agreed to cost containment for the company, which was counter to the implied promises of higher wages that UAW organizers were purportedly making inside the plant, and made negotiating for higher wages in an actual contract a moot point.
The pertinent statement of the backroom deal was found on page 11:
“…maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages that VWGOA enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America, including but not limited to legacy automobile manufacturers…”
This legal collusion (called “pre-recognitional bargaining”) between VW and the UAW behind employees’ backs, more than anything, helped employees realize that the UAW was in it for the union—not the employees.
As a result, in 2014, after the union had spent millions and more than a year laying the groundwork, the employees narrowly defeated the UAW and their pro-union employer.
In 2019, the UAW’s corruption cost the union.
While it is unknown whether the company maintained its neutrality during the UAW’s campaign, unlike in 2014, there appeared2 to be an absence of collusion between the company and the UAW.
However, by then, the UAW was embroiled in a multi-year union corruption scandal that saw multiple UAW officials—including two UAW presidents—eventually go to jail.
The UAW corruption had an impact, as pro-union writer Mike Elk noted at the time.
“…during the union election, the company and its anti-union allies were able to completely change the conversation by focusing on the corruption scandals embroiling the UAW in a federal investigation,” Elk lamented.
How 2024 was different.
Despite the fact that, after Friday night’s election results, “UAW President Shawn Fain called the decision a historic moment and the result of a decade of organizing and collaboration with VW’s labor leaders,” according to The Wall Street Journal, the AFL-CIO’s Liz Shuler attributed the UAW win (in part) to a “diverse coalition of young activists.”
As has happened across the United States, times have changed over the last few years, making the environment more favorable for the UAW.
A changing demographic, amid tight labor markets. As has happened elsewhere in the country, a number of employees who were with VW over prior elections, as well as those vocally opposed to the UAW, have moved on.
In addition, “Tennessee has 56 available workers for every 100 open jobs,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated last year.
With more seasoned employees, many of whom who were opposed to unionization, having left the company, Volkswagen seems to have hired younger workers who are more prone to unionization than their more seasoned cohorts
In addition to VW hiring a younger and more diverse workforce, those hired also include people from more pro-union states, according to Mike Elk.
Things began to change in 2022, when Volkswagen expanded the plant to produce the all-electric ID.4. In the process, the company hired over 2,000 new workers.
With labor shortages throughout the manufacturing sector, many of the workers hired by Volkswagen were much younger and more diverse. Some had even moved from more pro-union parts of the country to work there.
Given the tightness of the two prior elections, the absence of internal employee opposition, and the influx of more pro-union employees, the UAW’s victory seemed inevitable to most outside observers.
“I believe most of the younger workers were looking for something bigger to be a part of,” a former VW employee told me over the weekend. “The UAW was at the right place at the right time. Younger people need to be a part of something bigger and the UAW rallied them up promising better everything.”
‘The company that gets a union deserves a union.’ As Mike Elk describes the months and years between the UAW’s 2019 loss and last week’s election, VW management went from receptive to employee concerns to ignoring them.
“I shouldn’t have to talk to the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation just to get a hoist,” one VW employee told Elk. “I think that we need the ability to say, ‘Hey, this process is unsafe.’ And that’s it, not having to argue for weeks and weeks, and weeks of meetings to say like, ‘Hey, we need a hoist.’”
Very little opposition. Without internal opposition, the UAW was able to amass a larger following inside the plant.
“This time around, the UAW has recruited hundreds of people to the plant’s organizing committee, boosting their odds of success,” reported Bloomberg’s Josh Eidelson, himself a former union organizer. “Collectively, they have relationships with over 90% of the 4,300 person staff, according to employees.”
New UAW leadership. In addition, not to be overlooked is the fact that, after nearly a decade of corruption in the Michigan-based union, UAW members elected Shawn Fain as the union’s new president last year by the slimmest of margins.
Entering the UAW leadership as a “reformer” only months before the Detroit Three negotiations, as a former electrician from Kokomo, Indiana, Fain has quickly emerged as a “man of the people.”
Unlike the five UAW presidents in office since the 2014 election at VW—including the two who were imprisoned—Shawn Fain appears to be a different leader.
Surrounding himself with progressive activists, Fain has changed how the UAW communicates with its members and workers writ large, as evidenced by his weekly social media updates during the UAW strike against the Detroit Three.
Fain’s appeal is that he is “one of us,” and his attacks on “corporate greed” and his “eat the rich” progressive rhetoric resonates with many in a post-pandemic America.
While his attacks on the executives of the Detroit Three have certainly strained relations—which may cost the UAW and its members in the long run—and though he has his detractors, unlike his predecessors, Fain does not yet appear to be a “sellout” to many UAW members.
The Detroit contracts. Last fall, Fain and his team led what most consider to be a successful strike against the Detroit Three which, by all accounts, likely had a significant influence on the workers in Chattanooga.
No longer was the UAW seen as a corrupt loser.
Though most non-union automakers almost immediately increased wages significantly to match the Detroit contracts following the strike, the impression given was that non-union automakers were merely following the UAW contracts and were still not up to the same standards.
“I want my life to be more like their life,” VW employee Chris Brown told Bloomberg’s Eidelson last week.
What’s next?
In May, the UAW will be hoping to build on its victory at Volkswagen when the National Labor Relations Baord (NLRB) holds an election for workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama.
Notwithstanding the fact that Mercedes-Benz is a German company, the management there has met with employees and expressed its views.
“Mercedes is running a much more aggressive anti-union campaign than Volkswagen within the plant,” John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University, told Reuters.
If Mercedes’ workers do vote to unionize, then unlike with the Detroit Three, the UAW will have to negotiate contracts for each company independently. It is uncertain that either company will cave to the UAW’s demands without a fight.
As both automakers are located in right-to-work states—meaning workers cannot be fired for not paying union dues—the UAW’s bargaining power will be likely less than in states without right-to-work laws.
In addition, at Volkswagen, nearly 38 percent of the workforce did not vote for the UAW (including the more than 650 employees who did not vote at all). This means that the union’s bargaining power may be further diminished if it cannot call an effective strike.
In the fight against the Detroit Three, the UAW had the ability to strike selectively at different plants that, effectively, caused other plants to shut down.
The UAW will not have the advantage of crippling VW through a strike as the United States is not even in the top 10 countries that account for VW’s sales.
This includes, by the way, other VW brands not assembled in Chattanooga, like Audi, Škoda, Seat and Porsche.
So, unlike with the Detroit Three, where a strike could cripple the car companies, a strike against one plant in Chattanooga is likely to be less successful.
Regardless, for now, the UAW has cause to celebrate. After two humiliating losses and millions invested, it has finally achieved its decade-long goal of unionizing a foreign-owned auto plant in the South.
Disclosure: In 2014, I was involved in assisting Volkswagen employees who were opposed to unionization. During that time, it became known that the UAW had negotiated a backroom neutrality deal (behind employees’ backs) that had undermined the employees. You can read more, as well as listen to the details here.
Without personal involvement in the 2019 election (nor the 2024 election), this is conjecture, based on articles from the time.