UAW Points Toward Collective Bargaining at VW Tennessee Plant

The UAW says it is ready to begin discussions with management at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, TN, plant, with an eye focused on collective bargaining on wages and benefits for the facility’s blue-collar workers.

VW said yesterday it had verified at least 45% of Chattanooga’s hourly employees have joined the UAW, meaning the union now is eligible to sit down with management in biweekly meetings to discuss work-related issues.

Last month, the German automaker unveiled a new labor policy that opened the door to any union that could prove representation of at least 15% of workers at the Tennessee plant.

At that base level of membership, a union would be allowed to use plant meeting rooms, post literature and meet monthly with management. With 30% representation, a union qualifies for quarterly meetings with a member of the VW Chattanooga executive committee, and at 45% it is eligible to meet every other week with management.

Neither VW nor the UAW would specify the exact number of workers that have joined the union, but UAW Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel says it is “substantially over 50%” of the plant’s blue-collar employees.

In a conference call today with media, Casteel says the union now is “ready to move forward with formal conversations” with management, and he expects VW to follow through on what the union sees as a commitment for it to represent workers in collective bargaining.

The timetable for such an agreement is unclear, he admits.

Although this latest recognition by VW doesn’t “provide a pathway to collective bargaining, (it) doesn’t prohibit it,” he says. “But that is the end goal. I don’t know it’s a 2-week deal, but it’s not a 2-year deal either.

“We won’t put time constraints on ourselves,” Casteel adds. “We have to start the discussion and from there see if we can’t grow the situation into where we want it to be. (There’s) no baseline to (judge this) by.”

The move by VW to recognize the union at Chattanooga is “very historical,” the UAW official says. “To have the company invite engagement is unprecedented.”

But it’s also new territory for the union, which ultimately is aiming for a voice on Volkswagen’s international works council, an arrangement unlike anything other U.S. automakers have.

“Soon we will propose a formal partnership for establishing a works council (at Chattanooga),” he says. “What that looks like and how it works remains to be seen. We’ll be creating something new and doing it in a collaborative relationship with the global works council.”

Casteel says the recent developments in Chattanooga come in stark contrast to earlier this year, when amid staunch political opposition the UAW narrowly lost a plant-wide election to represent workers in collective bargaining.

“If you look at 10 months ago, did we think we’d be in this position today? No,” he says.

As for mending fences with political opponents, Casteel says: “I hope we have the opportunity to sit down with those that opposed us in the past and have a dialogue about what this means. Tennessee should lead on this issue. This is an opportunity for the state and the politicians in the state to step in and show progression.”

Dave Cole, former chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, MI, and a longtime industry analyst, says the door still could be open for an anti-UAW union to gain a foothold at Chattanooga. The American Council of Employees is such an organization, but has not yet formally applied with VW to represent workers.

“I could see competition between the UAW and some other bargaining unit more supported by employees and management,” he says. “I’m not sure (VW) is comfortable with the UAW. It’s going to be an interesting thing.”

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