Tenn. GOP pulls out the stops to fight unionization

[ProSense]

Tenn. GOP pulls out the stops to fight unionization

By Steve Benen

The employees at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., are voting this week on whether to join the United Automobile Workers union, and at first blush, it wouldn’t seem especially controversial. Many of the workers understandably welcome the opportunity to unionize, and the plant’s owners don’t have a problem with that at all. Indeed, Volkswagen executives are accustomed to working with organized labor at its facilities elsewhere...if workers and management are on the same page over unionization, why has this quietly become a major national story? Because Republican policymakers have decided both the workers and the plant owners are wrong – and the GOP officials are desperate to intervene.

State Senator Bo Watson, who represents a suburb of Chattanooga, warned on Monday that if VW’s workers voted to embrace the U.A.W., the Republican-controlled Legislature might vote against approving future incentives to help the plant expand…. A loss of such incentives, industry analysts say, could persuade Volkswagen to award production of a new S.U.V. to its plant in Mexico instead of to the Chattanooga plant, which currently assembles the Passat.

At a news conference on Tuesday, United States Senator Bob Corker, a former mayor of Chattanooga and a Republican, also called on VW employees to reject the union. He called it “a Detroit-based organization” whose key to survival was to organize plants in the South.

“We’re concerned about the impact,” Mr. Corker said. “Look at Detroit.”

That seemed like a pretty cheap shot – by the senator’s reasoning, Detroit’s crises were labor’s fault, and all unions invite crises in all cases – but Corker wasn’t done.

Yesterday, the Republican senator claimed he had secret knowledge of a plan to reward the Chattanooga VW plant with a new product line – but only if workers reject the plan to join the UAW union. This is the exact opposite of what the company has said, but Corker said he’s been “assured” that his secret tip is true.

Asked about Corker’s brazen attempts to intimidate workers, National Labor Relations Board expert Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, a professor of labor at the University of Indiana-Bloomington, told Reuters, “I’m really kind of shocked at Corker’s statement.” Another labor expert, Harley Shaiken of the University of California-Berkeley, suggested the senator’s claims may even be illegal.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/tenn-gop-fights-hard-block-vw-unionization

[Lifelong Protester]

1. Volkswagon should tell Tenn. that the

SUV plant is going elsewhere if the pols don't back off. Last I heard, the Germans are not happy with union bashing or busting...

[kelliekat44]

2. It's almost like living in the dark ages. We gave Poland unionization more support than the unions

in the USA. I guess we just like other people more than our own working men and women?

[Fumesucker]

10. That was back when Poland was still Communist

So there was a big political angle on the support of unions in Poland, it had nothing to do with actually supporting unions.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Yet more Republican bully tactics and hooliganism.....par for their self serving ways and paymasters

VW, Job Creator, WANTS the union to form, that is what is driving the GOP crazy.

[jojog]

4. TIPS

Do Not:

Threaten
Interrogate
Promise
Spy

These are against NLRB law.

GOP ----> Threats and Promises violate the law.

[raven mad]

6. I'm 60. My dad was a long-time labor activist.

I can tell you his post, the post #, and that he was elected, several times, to head that post.

The NLRB has been bought by corporations, unfortunately. Like all elected/selected pols, they want the bottom line = $$$.

Leave it to the troops in the trench to make it right. They/we will.

[leftyohiolib]

5. ok so if the senator is acting illegally who steps in to look at the legality of this

Another labor expert, Harley Shaiken of the University of California-Berkeley, suggested the senator’s claims may even be illegal.

[okaawhatever]

7. I don't know if the attorneys feel llike the illegal part would be him speaking at all on the matter

or the content of his speech. If it's the content of his speech I think he worded it in such a way as to avoid lying. What he said was:

"I've had conversations today and based on those am assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga," said Corker, without saying with whom he had the conversations.

I think he knew they were getting the SUV regardless of the vote. I think he learned that in the conversation he was quoting. What he DIDN'T say was that they would get the SUV line if they voted for the union also. That's what I think he did. Total d-bag that he is. It may legally be the truth, but the intent was pretty clear, to intimidate the workers.

[freshwest]

8. ProSense, that's not all that happened. Take a look at who supported Corker:

Would union cost Tennessee VW plant a new line? Senator and automaker at odds. (+video)

...Corker would not disclose his source. His comments were in line with a media campaign launched by Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group in Washington operated by conservative tax activist Grover Norquist.

A radio ad, posted to the organization’s website and running on seven local stations this week, states that the UAW is “the same union that bankrupted GM and Detroit. The truth is, workers don't need the UAW to form a works council, and VW doesn't need a works council to make cars. Chattanooga isn't Germany, or Detroit. At least, not yet.”

The group has also erected billboards that state, among other messages, “the UAW spends millions to elect liberal politicans (sic), including Barack Obama...”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0213/Would-union-cost-Tennessee-VW-plant-a-new-line-Senator-and-automaker-at-odds.-video

Plus, the article states:

Under US labor law, the Chattanooga workers were barred from creating a local work council because it required unionization.

That is why the UAW is there, to make it happen for them. Corker and his crew stepped over the line because the people he associates with are rabidly anti-union and unions are well-known for supporting Democrats like Obama:

Why Volkswagen is helping a union organize its own plant.

...That doesn't mean, however, that the vote is unopposed. National anti-union groups and the state's Republican leaders are campaigning against the UAW, saying unionization will spread like a contagion through Tennessee's other auto plants. “Then it’s BMW, then it’s Mercedes, then it’s Nissan, hurting the entire Southeast if they get the momentum," said Sen. Bob Corker (R.-Tenn.)...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/02/10/why-volkswagen-is-helping-a-union-organize-its-own-plant/

Which sounds like great news for the unions. Corker is very aware of how things will change with unionization. The only thing I've read was Obama is publicly neutral, but he has sent his VP on the road to make the case. Biden says Obama will take the cause unionizing the plant to the Supreme Court:

VP Joe Biden speaks about UAW success as unionizing efforts move forward at local VW plant

...Biden also said that right-wing business interests are trying to dismantle labor unions, which is related to growing income inequality in the United States, according to The Huffington Post.

"This is a concerted, full-throated, well-organized, well-financed, well-thought-out, long-term effort waging a war on labor's house," Biden told The Huffington Post.

Click here for that article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/05/joe-biden-unions_n_4731933.html

He also said that President Barack Obama's administration would fight for collective bargaining before the Supreme Court.

'Look at Harris v. Quinn, the case before the Supreme Court. There’s a hell of a lot at stake. The president and I, through the solicitor general, came in on the side of the unions on the oral arguments and finally had an amicus brief, because we know that collective bargaining is the bedrock of our economy.'

Click here for that article:

http://freebeacon.com/biden-thanks-uaw-for-helping-start-political-career/

Those latter links are from this website:

http://www.nooga.com/165327/vp-joe-biden-speaks-about-uaw-success-as-unionizing-efforts-move-forward-at-local-vw-plant/

However the Washington Free Beacon appears to be a RW online rag. What they are so horrified about, sounds great to Democrats.

So Corker took the low road for his masters and bullied the grass roots into not approving the union - no telling what other tactics other than media he was using. Could have been the pulpit, anything.

Very sad to see them get this, but this is 2014. Remember all the seats in the HoR are up for grabs! The GOP will be filling the media with lies and threats. GOTV!

[SoCalDem]

9. Just saw on the news that the unioniziing was voted down

.