As part of a campaign to organize non-union facilities, staff at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted decisively Friday to join the United Auto Workers union.
In an election organized through the National Labor Relations Board, another 985 people voted against the union, while 2,628 votes, or 73% of the total, were cast in favor of the union.
The UAW, which has the majority of its members in the auto sector at Ford, General Motors and Jeep’s parent company Stellantis, collectively known as the “Big Three,” would make up more than 4,000 employees at the site. At Volkswagen, the union has already lost two general elections, the most recent in 2019 in which it won by just 57 votes.
According to the UAW’s latest findings, the total number of votes cast is 2,628 in favor (73 percent), compared to 985 against (27 percent). Voting at the 4,300-person factory began Wednesday.
For both the industry and the union, the stakes are high. Automakers have expanded their services under the Mason-Dixon line over the years, as wages and union strength are lower than in the Midwest. The UAW no longer has as much influence over business criteria to manage situations as it once did, as it has not been able to organize factories in the South.
On Friday night, President Joe Biden congratulated workers and the UAW while denouncing Lee and other Republican governors for a joint they issued earlier in the week, urging workers to vote “no. “
Peoples told HuffPost that because of the amount of money Volkswagen and Tennessee invested in the plant when it opened in 2011, workers were less afraid to organize for fear of wasting their jobs. She was confident of the union’s victory for several reasons, adding: