Volkswagen workers in Tennessee begin crucial vote on unionization

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Volkswagen workers in Tennessee begin crucial vote on unionization
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 16:48 EST

Workers at German auto giant Volkswagen’s plant in Tennessee were voting Wednesday on whether to form a union, a decision seen as a referendum on the health of the US labor movement.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) has never managed to organize in an American plant owned by a foreign manufacturer, and a win at VW’s Chattanooga, Tennessee facility would be a significant victory.

Despite strong traditions of organized labor in their home countries, German, Japanese and South Korean automakers have strongly resisted unionization efforts in the United States.

But Volkswagen opened the door to the UAW last year under pressure from German unions to give the Tennessee plant a seat on VW’s global works council, which gives employees a say in the management of the company.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/12/volkswagen-workers-in-tennessee-begin-crucial-vote-on-unionization/

[OnlinePoker]

1. The article is incorrect that the UAW never managed to organize an American foreign owned plant

From an article I posted in another thread about this:

"Many Volkswagen workers -- correctly -- look warily at the experience of Volkswagen’s only other U.S. plant, in New Stanton, Pennsylvania. The UAW organized the plant in 1978. Almost immediately, the workers went on strike. The plant lurched from strike to strike and shut down 10 years later. All the union members lost their jobs; the plant could not survive profitably as a UAW operation."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/how-union-law-hurts-a-nonunion-auto-plant.html

[father founding]

2. Homer in Charge

If the plant was managed properly it would have survived

[Delphinus]

3. Welcome to DU.

I hope the union vote succeeds - workers need good unions.

[happyslug]

5. No, the market for the Rabbit dried up

And the New Stanton Plant made only Rabbits. Thus VW closed the plant.

In 1987 the New York Times reported:

The company said the plant, at New Stanton in southwestern Pennsylvania, had been losing money for five years. Because of sluggish sales and intensified competition in the small-car market, the operation offered little hope of becoming profitable, Volkswagen said.....

Volkswagen, a specialist in small cars, is not the only company that is suffering. The General Motors Corporation announced last year that it would close 11 plants, and the Chrysler Corporation has said that it will close at least one by the end of 1988.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/21/business/volkswagen-to-shut-us-plant.html

1987 was a bad year for small car makers, the SUV craze was kicking in, and it was hard to make a Rabbit into a four wheel drive SUV.

Remember gasoline prices peaked in the early 1980s, by 1987 the prices were way off they highs and people started to buy larger cars and then SUVs at that time period.

Here is a chart on oil prices, notice the huge drop in the price of oil after 1982. That killed off not only the Rabbit, but the Ford Fiesta sales in the US:



More on the Ford Fiesta, Ford "World Car" for the sub compact market. Ford kept bring it back to the US, but then sales died and was withdrawn. The "Fourth Generation", 1995-2002 was NEVER sold in the US. I suspect the third generation, 1989-2002 was also not sold, for the same reason the Rabbit died, less and less people wanted a compact or smaller after about 1982 when the price of oil dropped in real terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Fiesta

I love when labor is blamed for everything even things beyond labor or even management's control. Please also note, VW is NOT blaming the UAW or labor, the people blaming the UAW are just anti-union groups.

[riderinthestorm]

4. Kicking for good vibes for this vote! Come on UAW! nt