Chattanooga Volkswagen Workers Embrace Union in Historic Vote as UAW Sets Its Sights on the South

Pro-union workers demonstrate outside Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., plant on June 13, 2019. Reuters/Nick Carey

Chattanooga, Tennessee, is known as “Gig City,” not for its many live music venues but for its role as the first city in the Western Hemisphere to offer 1 gigabit-per-second fiber internet service to residents and businesses, which it did in 2010.

In 2024, Chattanooga has come to be representative of a different movement—the labor movement in the South. An overwhelming vote by the city’s Volkswagen employees on April 19 to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union was the first crack in a decades-long barrier holding back the labor movement south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Until now, the Chattanooga facility had been the only nonunion Volkswagen plant worldwide.

The UAW victory is the first at a foreign car manufacturing plant in the southern United States.

The victory for unions in Chattanooga was in stark contrast to the views of the state’s political leadership, which has not remained shy about its opposition to the unionization efforts.

“I would not make that decision if I was a worker there,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said after an event on April 22. “It’s unwise to put your future in somebody else’s hands. But those workers make that decision based on the individual circumstances at the plant. I think it was a mistake, but that’s their choice.”

President Joe Biden, who stood on a picket line last year in Michigan alongside striking UAW workers from the “Big Three” U.S. automakers—General Motors, Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), and Ford Motor Company—lauded the Chattanooga workers for their decision.

“Congratulations to the workers at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on their historic vote for union representation with the United Auto Workers,” he said in a statement. “I was proud to stand alongside auto workers in their successful fight for record contracts, and I am proud to stand with auto workers now as they successfully organize at Volkswagen. Across the country, union members have logged major wins and large raises, including auto workers, actors, port workers, Teamsters, writers, warehouse and health care workers, and more.”

President Biden went on to criticize the politics of Tennessee and neighboring states, which have long opposed unions, saying their attempts to “influence workers’ votes” failed. Before the vote in Chattanooga, Mr. Lee, along with five of his Republican gubernatorial counterparts, issued a letter saying that a vote for unions is a vote to kill jobs.

“Six Republican governors wrote a letter attempting to influence workers’ votes by falsely claiming that a successful vote would jeopardize jobs in their states,” President Biden said. “Let me be clear to the Republican governors that tried to undermine this vote: there is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose.”

Volkswagen, in a statement after the vote, noted the results and thanked its workers for participating.

Workers Decide

If the governors failed to quash the union movement at Volkswagen, it wasn’t because of a lack of effort.

“We the Governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the UAW has brought into our states,” the governors said in their joint statement. “As Governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”

Those warnings fell on deaf ears this time, Chris Hankins, a team leader at the Chattanooga plant and a veteran employee, told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Hankins was a strong proponent of unionization both during this most recent effort and in the failed attempt in 2019. He noted that another vote in 2013, before he joined the plant, also failed.

He said he and his colleagues who voted to unionize viewed the attempted interventions by politicians as misleading, aimed at protecting corporate interests rather than the welfare of the workers.

“We had a lot of Republican politicians coming in saying how bad of an idea it was and threatening our jobs,” Mr. Hankins said of past votes to unionize. “I mean, they’ve done that this time, too. But this time, it was like everybody turned a deaf ear to it. People are so sick of the politics that they have turned a blind eye to the politicians—because everybody is so sick of the infighting with all the politicians and Democrats, Republicans, and everybody. All they want to do is make a better life for themselves.”

This time around, he said, the UAW adopted a more grassroots approach to the union push, allowing workers to lead the organizing efforts through direct conversations with their peers. This strategy, he said, was crucial in demystifying the union’s role and emphasizing that it would be run by the workers themselves, not external forces.

“You know, the politicians are saying that us bringing in the UAW, that we’re bringing somebody else in to tell us how to run our business here,” Mr. Hankins said. “That’s what the politicians are trying to force on everybody, but what most people finally realized this time is that the union is already here.”

Personal Reasons to Join

Mr. Hankins highlighted a combination of improved benefits, distrust in existing retirement plans such as the 401(k), and better health insurance as his main motivations for supporting the effort. He said it was his belief that other Volkswagen plants worldwide, all of which are unionized, have better insurance and paid time off.

“Anybody that [says] that we’ve made a mistake has never worked on an assembly line or anywhere like that,” he said. “Volkswagen is a different place to work. It’s not a bad place, and I don’t think it’s a bad place even though we’ve not been unionized.”

Mr. Hankins also said the membership cost was not something that put him off, considering the benefits he believes that the union will bring. UAW dues are equivalent to 2.5 working hours per month for hourly workers, he said.

Another factor he said may have pushed the vote to victory this time around was seeing the “Big 3” UAW contracts that were negotiated last year, which he said “showed what is possible for benefits at VW.”

Mr. Hankins also said the change in leadership of the UAW in 2023 and new president Shawn Fain have shifted the public perception of the UAW, noting that Mr. Fain genuinely seems to care about improving benefits for workers.

Mr. Fain said after the vote that he wanted to salute the workers who had worked for so long toward unionizing.

“I want to salute those of you who have been in this fight for over a decade,” he said. “Your fortitude is what delivered this.”

He said he believes that the younger generation that works in the factory is generally more open to unions than older workers, who have longstanding beliefs about unions and the corruption surrounding them.

A Union Man’s Perspective

Paul Glover, an attorney with experience in union organizing, told The Epoch Times that Tennessee’s governor is not likely to change his politics on the issue but will have to learn to live with the reality.

“The governors and their administrations went out and sold foreign auto manufacturing companies on the fact that this would be a cheaper way to manufacture a car because it was a state that did not have unionized workers, so it was a big sales pitch,” Mr. Glover said. “The governor of Tennessee has lost that sales pitch.”

At the same time, he said, whether a state is union or not may still be a consideration for companies looking to set up shop in that state, although it may not be the deciding factor.

Mr. Glover cited four societal, workplace, and governmental conditions that have come together in 2024 to create a resurgence in union organizing.

Those factors include a lack of trust in employers on the part of employees, increasing public and government support for unions, momentum from deals like the Big Three and Chattanooga organizing win, and unengaged, burned-out middle managers.

Mr. Glover, who has extensive experience on both sides of union campaigns, described the Chattanooga success as an “epic win” that pierced a decades-long barrier against unionization south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

He said the breakthrough can largely be attributed to the UAW’s current aggressive leadership, under the guidance of Mr. Fain, who has not only revitalized the union’s approach but has also set his sights on organizing the unorganized across the nation.

This shift comes at a time when public opinion of unions is notably high, with approval ratings soaring to levels unseen since the 1960s.

Mr. Glover highlighted that 67 percent of Americans now favor labor unions, according to Gallup polls, with particularly strong support among Gen Z, the most pro-union generation since the 1930s.

This demographic shift is significant, given that Gen Z is poised to replace baby boomers as a dominant force in the labor market by 2025, he said.

Mr. Glover also pointed out that pro-union sentiment is buoyed by a supportive political environment under the Biden administration, which has been proactive in facilitating union activities through legislative and procedural changes at the National Labor Relations Board.

This supportive stance is complemented by a changing generational attitude toward labor, as younger workers seek more influence over their work conditions and a fairer share of economic gains, particularly in the aftermath of economic challenges highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Glover said he feels that the rich have gotten richer following the COVID-19 pandemic, while workers have not benefited. He said this has influenced workers to push for unionization in order to get a “fair share.”

Gen Z is bitter that they can’t afford to buy homes, he said, and they think that they can have a voice at the table through a union instead of being treated as second-class citizens.

Mr. Glover also touched upon the challenges and dynamics of unionizing efforts in different sectors, comparing the UAW’s success with the struggles faced by nascent, independent unions at places such as Amazon.

He argued that these smaller unions lack the experience and resources that established unions such as the UAW can leverage, often resulting in unsuccessful campaigns, despite initial victories at the ballot box.

Some Workers Still Skeptical

Although only an estimated quarter of workers voted against unionizing this time, there was strong sentiment from this group leading up to the vote.

A group of workers who organized a “No 2 UAW” campaign in the previous vote organized again, this time under a “Still No To UAW” banner.

The group’s website urges workers to vote no to keep Chattanooga from becoming the next Detroit, showing dilapidated photos of the once-great automotive hub.

The group also tied heavily into a political message, stating that unions, in general, are donors to “leftwing Democrats” and that President Biden supported VW workers’ unionizing. They also noted that the UAW had endorsed President Biden over former President Donald Trump.

Another point of skepticism: It stated that the UAW has dwindling membership numbers compared with a decade ago, noting that it should focus more on its members than on politics.

The Epoch Times attempted to reach out to the group through various channels but did not receive a response before publication of this article.

As the UAW prepares for its next big challenge, at a Mercedes plant in Alabama next month, Mr. Glover said he remains optimistic about the union’s ability to replicate its success, using Chattanooga as a steppingstone and a model for further organizing efforts across the South and beyond.