Jacobin Radio: UAW's Southern Campaign w/ Chattanooga Auto Workers

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2024

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee scored a smashing victory on April 19, when they voted by a 3-1 margin to join the UAW. That makes Tennessee Volkswagen the first auto plant in the South to unionize by election since the 1940s. While the recent victory was overwhelming, it came only after two bitter organizing defeats for the VW Chattanooga workers, first in 2014 and then in 2019. The organizing victory at VW is one of the single most important wins for U.S. labor in decades, and potentially the start of a much bigger turnaround.

Guest host Barry Eidlin talks to auto workers Yolanda Peoples, Renee Berry, and Victor Vaughn — all deeply involved in the organizing campaign at the Volkswagen Chattanooga plant — about how they organized, how they won, and what comes next.

Barry talked to the Chattanooga workers before the union vote count at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama on May 17. While the Volkswagen organizing drive was an amazing success, the workers lost at the Mercedes plant in nearby Alabama, where 56% of workers voted against unionizing after a sophisticated anti-union drive by management with an assist from anti-union local and state officials.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Beneath the Surface. I'm your guest host, Barry Idlin,
0:14.2	filling in once again for your regular host,
0:16.8	Susie Weisman, who will be back soon.
0:19.6	When the history books are written many years from now.
0:22.9	April 19, 2024 could be remembered
0:26.4	as a critical turning point for US labor.
0:29.8	That's the day that autoworkers at the Volkswagen Plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted by a whopping 73% to 27% margin to join the United
0:40.8	Auto Workers or UAW.
0:43.8	In so doing, they became the first Auto Plant in the South to unionize by election since
0:48.9	the 1940s.
0:51.3	While the recent victory was overwhelming, it came only after two bitter organizing defeats
0:56.8	for the VW Chattanooga workers, first in 2014 and then in 2019. The victory at the Chattanooga v. W. Plant is the opening shot in a broader
1:09.3	UAW campaign to organize all 13 non-union automakers in the US.
1:15.0	This includes more than 150,000 workers at Japanese, Korean, and German so-called
1:22.0	transplants like Toyota, Kia and Mercedes,
1:26.5	along with domestic electric vehicle or EV manufacturers like Tesla and Rivian.
1:34.5	This campaign is a vital strategic importance not only to the UAW, but to the U.S. labor movement
1:40.8	as a whole. First, it's the most serious attempt to reorganize U.S.
1:46.3	manufacturing since the CIO first organized basic industry in the 1930s and 40s. Despite decades of discourse about the decline of
1:56.8	US manufacturing, the fact remains that it is central to the US economy, still accounting for more than 10% of US GDP in
2:07.8	2022, as compared to just over 8% of GDP for the education and health care sectors combined.
2:17.9	Auto in particular has remained a core part of the manufacturing sector, with employment remaining fairly stable over the past four decades at about 1% of overall employment.
	...

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