Workers Reject UAW at Tennessee VW Plant

[percysunshine]

Evidently, VW management offered the workers a better deal than the union.

Evidently the workers are not stupid. How is a 'middle man' fixer who takes a cut of the workers pay for mostly doing nothing an advantage?

 

[longknife]

Tenn. lawmakers issue incentive threat in VW union move.

The crusade by anti-union forces in Tennessee, including the state's governor and senior senator, is as much a fight with Volkswagen management as with the UAW.

Not only are Republican legislators accusing Volkswagen of backing the UAW, some of their leaders on Monday threatened to withhold tax incentives for future expansion of the 3-year-old assembly plant in Chattanooga if workers vote this week to join the UAW.

About 1,500 workers will vote from Wednesday through Friday in an election that the National Labor Relations Board will conduct.

....Norquist and a group called Center for Worker Freedom have rented about a dozen digital billboards in the Chattanooga area trumpeting anti-union messages. One shows an image of the long-abandoned Packard ruins with the message: Detroit: Brought to You by the UAW.

The company has allowed anti-union groups into the plant to talk to workers and distribute printed material




Tenn. lawmakers issue incentive threat in VW union move

Again more proof that Republicans only believe in the free market if it benefits the GOP.

Would you please explain how he GOP has anything to do with this? It was the unions and Democrats how put a huge effort - including lots of $$# - behind unionizing this plant.

 

[longknife]

UAW Falls 87 Votes Short of Major Victory in South

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. February 14, 2014 (AP)
By ERIK SCHELZIG and TOM KRISHER Associated Press

Just 87 votes at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee separated the United Auto Workers union from what would have been its first successful organization of workers at a foreign automaker in the South.

I thought someone posted that the union won. Well, they're already whining about it.

One of the first tweets is: “Right-wing economic terrorism blamed for UAW loss in Tennessee”

Read story @ ?Right-wing economic terrorism? blamed for UAW loss in Tennessee | Twitchy with link.

And there's this - UAW Fails to Organize Tenn. VW Plant; AP Report Calls Loss 'Devastating,' Highlights Excuses | NewsBusters

 

[Political Junky]

The Unions made the middle class possible in their heyday. As the Unions have disappeared, so has the middle class.

 

[Geaux4it]

Union busters rule

-Geaux

US Organized Labor Humiliated After Volkswagen's Tennessee Workers Vote Against Unionizing

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/15/2014 10:37 -0500

While US organized labor has been in a state of steady decline for several generations, never had it suffered as crushing a blow as it did last night, when in a 712 to 626 vote, Volkswagen's hourly workers in Chattanooga, TN, rejected joining the United Auto Workers labor union. What makes the defeat even more bitter is that a win would have marked the first time the union has been able to organize a foreign-owned auto plant in a Southern U.S. state, and would have been particularly meaningful, because the vote was set in a right-to-work state in the South, where anti-union sentiment is strong and all past UAW organizing drives at automobile plants have failed. What is most shocking, however, is that the defeat came even though the UAW had the cooperation of Volkswagen management and the aid of Germany's powerful IG Metall union, and yet it still failed to win a majority among the plants 1,550 hourly workers. As the WSJ notes, "the defeat raises questions about the future of a union that for years has suffered from declining membership and influence, and almost certainly leaves its president, Bob King, who had vowed to organize at least one foreign auto maker by the time he retires in June, with a tarnished legacy."

US Organized Labor Humiliated After Volkswagen's Tennessee Workers Vote Against Unionizing | Zero Hedge

 

[Antares]

The Unions made the middle class possible in their heyday. As the Unions have disappeared, so has the middle class.

That day is long gone.

 

[longknife]

A worker at the plant explained his reason for voting against the union this morning on Fox & Friends. He said, basically, that union leadership had no rules forcing them to abide by the wishes of the membership.

More or less - "Why should I pay my money and not be able to say how it's spent or where it goes?"

 

[Geaux4it]

 

[blastoff]

Just hoping it cost the union a shit load of their members' dues money in yet another stunning defeat.

The VW workers should adopt "On Wisconsin" as their official fight song.

 

[JakeStarkey]

This is what the threat of unions is supposed to do: make sure the companies treat their employees fairly.

 

[Iceweasel]

This is what the threat of unions is supposed to do: make sure the companies treat their employees fairly.

So the VW workers aren't being treated fairly? I guess I'll defer to their opinion instead.

 

[Mr Natural]

This is what the threat of unions is supposed to do: make sure the companies treat their employees fairly.

So the VW workers aren't being treated fairly? I guess I'll defer to their opinion instead.

You totally missed Jake's point, didn't you.

 

[natstew]

I'm left with the distinct impression that the Glory Days of labor unions are gone forevermore.

This coming from someone who was a Teamster, for a couple of years, eons ago, as a part-time semi tractor-trailer driver on evenings and weekends, driving a semi tractor-trailer when not going to the university, as a kid fresh out of the service, going back to school on the GI Bill, and who hails in part from a Chicago South-Side Irish blue-collar union card-carrying family, with deep, loyal roots to the Labor Movement in our neck of the woods.

Observing unions as a non-member now for many years, I've concluded that very few unions, and very few locals within those unions, do a very good job of protecting their memberships from the worst predations of Big Business and that Big Business has outsourced and off-shored so many jobs, formerly protected by the unions, that many unions are hanging-on by the skin of their teeth and do not earn their pay (dues) any longer, the way they once did in this country.

I blame (largely) Republican Big Business for screwing-over labor by outsourcing and off-shoring so many of those jobs that formerly fed an entire family - a day's honest labor for a day's honest wages.

I blame (largely) Democratic politicians for screwing-over labor by advocating for Illegal Aliens to be rewarded with a path to citizenship after 12,000,000 of them have descended upon us like a plague of locusts and depressed wages in several trades.

I blame (largely) Republican Big Business for preying upon that Illegal Alien labor pool and undercutting the wages of honest hard-working Americans and thereby further eroding their position and prospects.

I blame (largely) bipartisan voters for putting up with these Illegal Aliens for so long and eventually growing tired of resisting and letting the bigwigs on both sides shoe-horn in another 12,000,000 Illegal Aliens into the country as another (1986) and quadrupled Shamnesty approaches on the horizon.

I blame the unimaginative dullards in these unions for not having the foresight to envision such outcomes and for not having the courage to put a stop to both business subversion of unions and the schemes of politicians and vote-whores in both parties to sneak another 12,000,000 in under the rug.

I blame us - the American People - for the very same thing.

Several major factors have served to emasculate Labor Unions in this country and to render them a mere shadow of their former selves.

Or so it seems to this observer, at first glance.

For the most part, I agree with you.
I'll add this observation; Like all politicians Union management must do "something" to prove their worthwhile, even if it's wrong for the people who elected them.

 

[O.R.I.O.N]

Workers will continue to get the shaft,bosses will continue to get big bonus's and better pay...ahhh capitalism...

 

[Iceweasel]

This is what the threat of unions is supposed to do: make sure the companies treat their employees fairly.

So the VW workers aren't being treated fairly? I guess I'll defer to their opinion instead.

You totally missed Jake's point, didn't you.

No.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Does anyone know the difference between UAW wages, benefits and job security vis a vis a 'right to work' (I love that phrase, it's so enigmatic) job at a similar plant?

 

[JoeB131]

[]

Sorry, no.
The Unions have served their purpose and are no longer useful.

Really?

Employers are now treating employees with fairness, dignity and a concern for their well-being?

News to most of us, I'm sure.

 

[natstew]

Note the Democrat donors leading this list of biggest donors to political parties! The biggest are Unions, they scream the loudest against Republican donors but donate the most. It's the old, "who farted game". If you want to know what the Democrats are doing and don't want you to know, look at what they're accusing the Republicans of doing.

Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2014 | OpenSecrets

 

[JakeStarkey]

So the VW workers aren't being treated fairly? I guess I'll defer to their opinion instead.

You totally missed Jake's point, didn't you.

No.

Yep, you did. The company was treating the workers fairly so they voted against the union.

The union would have been voted in if the company had been screwing up.

 

[JoeB131]

I'm left with the distinct impression that the Glory Days of labor unions are gone forevermore.

This coming from someone who was a Teamster, for a couple of years, eons ago, as a part-time semi tractor-trailer driver on evenings and weekends, driving a semi tractor-trailer when not going to the university, as a kid fresh out of the service, going back to school on the GI Bill, and who hails in part from a Chicago South-Side Irish blue-collar union card-carrying family, with deep, loyal roots to the Labor Movement in our neck of the woods.

Observing unions as a non-member now for many years, I've concluded that very few unions, and very few locals within those unions, do a very good job of protecting their memberships from the worst predations of Big Business and that Big Business has outsourced and off-shored so many jobs, formerly protected by the unions, that many unions are hanging-on by the skin of their teeth and do not earn their pay (dues) any longer, the way they once did in this country.

I blame (largely) Republican Big Business for screwing-over labor by outsourcing and off-shoring so many of those jobs that formerly fed an entire family - a day's honest labor for a day's honest wages.

I blame (largely) Democratic politicians for screwing-over labor by advocating for Illegal Aliens to be rewarded with a path to citizenship after 12,000,000 of them have descended upon us like a plague of locusts and depressed wages in several trades.

I blame (largely) Republican Big Business for preying upon that Illegal Alien labor pool and undercutting the wages of honest hard-working Americans and thereby further eroding their position and prospects.

I blame (largely) bipartisan voters for putting up with these Illegal Aliens for so long and eventually growing tired of resisting and letting the bigwigs on both sides shoe-horn in another 12,000,000 Illegal Aliens into the country as another (1986) and quadrupled Shamnesty approaches on the horizon.

I blame the unimaginative dullards in these unions for not having the foresight to envision such outcomes and for not having the courage to put a stop to both business subversion of unions and the schemes of politicians and vote-whores in both parties to sneak another 12,000,000 in under the rug.

I blame us - the American People - for the very same thing.

Several major factors have served to emasculate Labor Unions in this country and to render them a mere shadow of their former selves.

Or so it seems to this observer, at first glance.

It appears to this observer that you have a major bug up your keister about illegal aliens, and they really aren't the problem here.

I think Unions have declined for a number of reasons. First is that corporations outsourced and offshored so much work, but the other part of the problem is that companies have needed by necessity to reduce headcount to increase profits. So a job that used to be done by five people is now done by two. Works well for the investor, he sees more dividends, but it sucks for the three people who lost jobs and the two people who still have them and had their workloads increased by 150%.

Second problem, most of what unions used to do is now done by government. So they've become redundant.

Third problem- Unions didn't evolve to match the changing workforce. in short, they were only interested in protecting their own members, and not the workforce in general. That means not only did managment resent them, but so did their peers. (Of course, constant propagandizing against "lazy" union workers probably didn't help.)