We're next for unions after VW workers in the South vote to join the UAW.

I'm David Brancaccio in New York.

We're following a landmark moment for the labor movement in the US for the first time

autoworkers at a foreign-owned plant in a southern state have voted to

unionize. It was a landslide victory for the United Auto Workers at a

Volkswagen of Germany plant in Tennessee,

Marketplace is Nova Safos here with more.

David, it was in fact a big victory at that Chattanooga plant.

2600 workers cast ballots in favor of joining the union. There were about a thousand

votes against. So that's quite a comfortable margin of victory better than 2 to 1. And remarkable

because when the UAW last tried five years ago it didn't manage to crack 50% of the vote.

But it's gotten an assist this year.

The big pay raises and benefits the Union won in negotiations last year with the Detroit

3. That's helped the Detroit

three of course being GM Ford and Stellantis at the VW plant in Tennessee the

workers are just getting started of course now they begin negotiations for their

first contract. Now during voting

Republican governors of six states in the South had issued a joint statement

warning workers not to vote for the Union saying the move threatened jobs and quote the values we live by.

Meanwhile the UAW is already looking beyond VW.

Where next?

Well, when it reached those deals with the big three, the union made no secret of the fact that it would be redoubling its efforts at southern plants.

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