Autoworkers union celebrates breakthrough win in Tennessee and takes aim at more plants in the South

DALLAS -- The United Auto Workers' overwhelming election triumph astatine a Volkswagen works successful Tennessee is giving the national anticipation that it tin marque broader inroads successful the South, the slightest unionized portion of the country.

The UAW won a stunning 73% of the ballot astatine VW aft losing elections successful 2014 and 2019. It was the union's archetypal triumph successful a Southern assembly works owned by a overseas automaker.

Union President Shawn Fain said the pundits each told him that the UAW couldn't triumph successful the South.

“But you each said, ‘Watch this,’ ” helium told a cheering radical of VW organizers astatine a national hallway successful Chattanooga, Tennessee, connected Friday night, erstwhile the UAW triumph was clear. "You guys are starring the way. We’re going to transportation this combat connected to Mercedes and everyplace else.”

However, the UAW is apt to look a tougher trial arsenic it tries to correspond workers astatine 2 Mercedes-Benz plants successful Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A five-day predetermination is scheduled to commencement May 13, wherever the union’s run has already go heated.

The UAW has accused the German carmaker of violating U.S. and German labour laws with assertive anti-union tactics, which the institution denies.

“They are going to person a overmuch harder roadworthy successful enactment sites wherever they are going to look assertive absorption absorption and adjacent assemblage absorption than they faced successful Chattanooga," said Harry Katz, a labor-relations prof astatine Cornell University. "VW absorption did not aggressively question to debar unionization. Mercedes is going to beryllium a bully test. It's the deeper South.”

Late past year, the UAW announced a thrust to correspond astir 150,000 workers astatine non-union factories mostly successful the South. The national is targeting U.S. plants tally by Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, on with factories operated by electric-vehicle makers Tesla, Rivian and Lucid.

The union's past decision astatine VW successful Chattanooga came astatine a low-water people — successful the mediate of a national probe into bribery and embezzlement nether a erstwhile president.

Marick Masters, a concern prof astatine Wayne State University successful Detroit who studies the UAW, said the national flipped the publication by installing caller leadership, touting the affluent contracts it won past twelvemonth from Detroit automakers aft strikes astatine targeted factories, and exploiting a clime that is present much favorable to unions. He said the national was besides adept astatine translating signed pro-union authorization cards into votes — partially by pushing for a speedy election.

“Now the nationalist and media eyes are going to beryllium connected Chattanooga and however rapidly the UAW tin construe this into a contract,” helium said. If the national can't rapidly get a bully contract, it risks losing immoderate of the momentum it gained with Friday's predetermination win, helium said.

Unions successful different industries are already moving up with organizing campaigns successful the South and trying to larn from the UAW's playbook.

The Association of Flight Attendants, which has tried and failed to triumph implicit compartment crews astatine Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, hopes to cod capable signatures to unit different predetermination astatine Delta by twelvemonth end. The union's president, Sara Nelson, said she was not amazed astatine the UAW triumph aft strikes that led to grounds contracts past year.

“I've been talking astir this for a agelong clip — that strikes and taking connected the brag is going to spur organizing, and that's precisely what we saw here,” Nelson said.

Nelson is trying to unafraid an industry-leading declaration astatine United Airlines that she tin usage to tribunal Delta crews. In the meantime, crews astatine startup Breeze Airways, galore of whom unrecorded successful the South, volition ballot adjacent period whether to articulation her union.

The White House issued a connection from President Joe Biden congratulating the UAW. Biden — who joined a UAW picket enactment successful Michigan during the union's onslaught against Ford, GM and Stellantis plants past twelvemonth — praised the occurrence of unions representing autoworkers, Hollywood actors and writers, wellness attraction workers and others successful gaining amended contracts.

“Together, these national wins person helped rise wages and show erstwhile again that the middle-class built America and that unions are inactive gathering and expanding the mediate people for each workers,” Biden said.

Biden criticized six Southern Republican governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee, who told autoworkers this week that voting for national practice would jeopardize jobs.

Sharon Block, a instrumentality prof astatine Harvard University who worked successful the Biden Labor Department, said the governors’ informing rang hollow aft nonunion Tesla revealed that it plans to laic disconnected 10% of its workers aft disappointing income results. She said VW workers saw the governors' unfastened missive arsenic “an bare menace and a cynical ploy,” and they ignored it.

“Workers for a agelong clip person been told that you can’t signifier successful the South. And galore workers, adjacent not successful the South, whitethorn enactment successful industries wherever they’ve been told for a agelong clip you can’t organize,” Block said. “What the UAW showed past nighttime is that we request to spell and rethink each those antagonistic statements."

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Associated Press writer Gary Robertson successful Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.