The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has dropped its appeal of a union vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but instead of giving up, the union says it will turn its attention toward Congress.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had scheduled an April 21 hearing in Chattanooga on the appeal of a February union election in which workers at the plant rejected unionization 712-626. Just an hour before the hearing was to begin, the UAW announced it was dropping its appeal. A UAW statement claimed the “NLRB’s historically dysfunctional and complex process” led it to drop the appeal.
Also, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) had refused to participate in the hearing. The union claims statements by Haslam, Corker, and others tainted the vote. In particular, the UAW claims that politicians said the state’s offer of nearly $300 million in incentives to bring a new SUV to the Chattanooga plant would be endangered if workers voted to unionize.
Instead of appealing through NLRB channels, the UAW statement says a congressional inquiry into the incentives “provides the best opportunity for additional scrutiny.” U.S. Representatives George Miller (D-California) and John F. Tierney (D-Massachusetts) sent Haslam a letter asking for documentation of the incentives, according to media reports.
“Frankly, Congress is a more effective venue for publicly examining the now well-documented threat,” UAW president Bob King said in a statement following the union’s withdrawal of its appeal. “We commend Congressmen George Miller and John Tierney for their leadership on this matter and look forward to seeing the results of their inquiry.”
After the appeal was dropped, Corker issued a statement calling the UAW’s objection to the vote “a sideshow to draw attention away from [its] stinging loss in Chattanooga.”
“Many have felt the UAW never really wanted another election in the near term because [it] knew [it] would lose by an even larger margin, based on widespread knowledge of the UAW’s problematic track record throughout the country, which the workers at Volkswagen have been able to see firsthand over recent months,” Corker said. He went on to say the UAW’s appeal “slowed the momentum on our expansion conversations with Volkswagen.”
Volkswagen issued a statement welcoming the UAW’s decision to drop the appeal even though the company, unlike many employers faced with a union campaign, had agreed not to fight the union’s organizing effort because it hopes to establish at the Chattanooga plant the kind of “works council” it has at other plants around the world. Under U.S. law, such a council apparently requires workers to be represented by a union.