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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS auto union close to big win thanks to Germany's VW
By Joseph Szczesny
Detroit (AFP) - American labor leaders are closing in on a decades-long goal of organizing a factory run by a foreign automaker, thanks to a bridgehead opened up at Germany's Volkswagen.
While a vote has not yet been scheduled, the United Auto Workers says that a majority of the 1,700 workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have signed cards asking for union representation.
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Bringing German-style labor relations to the United States could change labor dynamics across the entire auto industry, said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California Berkeley.
"They view the relationship with employees as critical," he told AFP. "The relationship is more important than the anti-union ideology harbored by local political figures around the Chattanooga plant."
http://news.yahoo.com/us-auto-union-close-big-win-thanks-germany-034945292.html
TheMathieu
(456 posts)Every union, big or small, strengthens the fabric of our country.
"could change labor dynamics across the entire auto industry"
Exciting.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)When other workers see how this will help those workers, perhaps unions throughout the state will spread!
Cha
(297,352 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)A HERETIC I AM
(24,371 posts)It is interesting that Volkswagen, heavily unionized in Germany, intentionally located a plant in the US in a "Right to work" state like Tennessee.
They aren't the only one, either. Nissan has a plant in Smyrna, TN south of Nashville. The UAW has had no luck organizing that plant.
I've hauled cars out of most of the foreign nameplate assembly plants in the south, namely;
Volkswagen, Chattanooga
Nissan, Smyrna, TN
Kia, West Point, GA
BMW, Spartanburg, SC
Mercedes Benz, Vance, AL
Toyota, Georgetown, KY
Not in the south, but I've also hauled out of;
Honda, Marysville, OH.
NUMMI (Toyota/.GM Joint venture) Fremont, CA
Subaru, Lafayette, IN
Ohio Assembly, Avon Lake, OH (Built the Nissan minivan)
Those are just the foreign makes. There are probably one or two that have slipped my mind.