seen on March 20, 2024 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The United Auto Workers filed for a union vote for the 4,000 hourly workers at the Chattanooga plant. The UAW has broken a decades-long string of frustration as a majority of workers at the Volkswagen auto plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have voted to come under union representation, the first foreign-owned, U.S. plant to do so.
“Volkswagen thanks its Chattanooga workers for voting in this election,” the automaker said in a release that confirmed the outcome of the vote. “Six Republican governors wrote a letter attempting to influence workers’ votes by falsely claiming that a successful vote would jeopardize jobs in their states. Let me be clear to the Republican governors that tried to undermine this vote: there is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose,” Pres. Biden said in his statement.
“That’s the hard part of this,” Fain said. “You know, people put so much focus on the election. The election is important because you have to vote to organize to get the first contract but you know, the first contract will also be a big deal.”