VW Workers Reject UAW in Chattanooga

If you've been paying attention to car manufacturing in the US, you know that Tennessee is the number one auto manufacturing state. 

This is the fourth consecutive year that Tennessee has held the top spot, thanks to the the long-term commitment of Nissan and General Motors manufacturing and assembly plants, and the more recent addition of Volkswagen in Chattanooga.

Michigan - the ancestral home of the US Auto industry - isn't even close.

You also likely know that, following several years of declining membership, the United Automobile Workers...

...is seeking to rebuild membership by trying to organize workers at the U.S. factories of Volkswagen AG (VOW) and Nissan Motor Co. (7201) The UAW previously failed to convince workers to join the union at Nissan as well as the U.S. factories of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Honda Motor Co. (7267) 

They failed.

In what is being characterized as a major blow to the United Auto Workers, workers at Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga, TN have voted to reject union representation. The voting results – 712 opposed and 626 in favor – were released late Friday evening after a three-day secret ballot voting drive captured 89 percent of eligible workers. The results now go to the National Labor Relations Board for certification.

The last time the UAW attempted to unionize a VW plant in the US, they succeeded.  For a time.

When Volkswagen decided to open its first U.S. assembly plant in the 1970s, it assumed it would have to deal with the UAW, then at the height of its power as an industrial union and a force in American politics. Dealing with the UAW was seen as the cost of doing business.
...
The VW plant in Pennsylvania was troubled from the start with wildcat strikes and costly production shutdowns.

The plant closed in 1987, shipping its equipment and 5,700 jobs to China.  Those "costly production shutdowns" alone didn't force the plant's closing, but they certainly contributed.

Because the UAW, like other unions, is a major political donor, this story has a political angle.

The rejection of a key Democratic Party ally occurred despite [because of? ~ OS] President Barack Obama’s personal support for the unionization drive. Tennessee Republicans “are more concerned about German shareholders than American workers,” Obama said shortly before American workers shot down the unionization bid, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Unfortunately for the UAW and their Democrat allies, it wasn't German shareholders or Tennessee Republicans - but ordinary American workers - who rejected UAW representation.  As Matt Patterson, executive director of the Center for Worker Freedom, stated...

“The workers at Volkswagen looked at the history of this union and made the best decision for themselves, their jobs and their community... In spite of the UAW’s multi-million dollar propaganda machine, and with company and government officials at Obama’s NLRB aiding the union in every possible way, workers learned the facts and were able to make an informed decision.”

In other words, a bunch of ordinary American workers looked at what they had to gain - and what they had to lose - by joining the UAW, and decided against it of their own free will.  This is why unions and their Democrat allies fight Right to Work laws tooth and nail.  They're afraid that people given the freedom to choose will decline the unions' services.

But, if one has to force ones services onto another, obviously those services aren't all that great to begin with.