WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee may have crossed a line this week in saying a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga is “assured” of getting a new family of vehicles to build if its workers reject unionization, labor experts said.

Corker’s comments could be construed as “coercive” and could provide grounds for the United Auto Workers to contest any vote by plant workers rejecting unionization, said Angela Cornell, who directs the Labor Law Clinic at the Cornell University Law School.

“Employees have what’s been recognized by our Supreme Court as a fundamental right to engage in this process and decide whether to organize or not,” she said. “And it seems as if things are so riled up in that community that they’re starting to encroach on employees’ free choice.”

About 1,500 workers at the plant have been voting in a three-day election scheduled to end today.