The UAW has enlisted the help of the AFL-CIO to pressure Volkswagen to recognize the auto union at its plant in Tennessee.
The executive council of the AFL-CIO, at the request of the United Auto Workers, has challenged Volkswagen AG’s management to live up to its stated corporate principles.
“The diesel emissions scandal at Volkswagen has called into question the principles the company has touted: environmental protection, sustainability and social responsibility. The damage done by the deception perpetrated on its customers will take a long time to heal,” the AFL-CIO noted in a statement.
“To regain the trust of its stakeholders,” the statement continued. “Volkswagen must make corporate social responsibility more than just a slogan and a public relations strategy.
“It must recognize that emissions controls are meant to limit the social costs of air pollution, and that collective bargaining helps create and sustain a productive and secure workforce.”
In December, workers in the skilled trades at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant became the first workers in the old Confederacy to vote for union representation when 70% of them voted to join the UAW. The election was supervised by the National Labor Relations board.
VW’s major union, IG Metall, the German metalworkers union, also has been pressing the automaker to recognize the UAW. But Volkswagen of America, facing heavy pressure from anti-union groups and the conservative Tennessee legislature, has challenged the election results, saying all the workers at the Chattanooga plant should have a chance to decide to select the UAW as their bargaining agent.
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Since the victory in the representation election, the UAW has been pressing VW to begin collective bargaining on a new contract for the 160 members of the unit approved by the NLRB. Any deal would be the first negotiated at an auto plant in the South owned by an Asian or European carmaker. The Chattanooga plant has a total of 1,600 employees.
“Volkswagen workers also are feeling deceived, not so much by the emissions cheating, but by the company’s behavior at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant,” the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization of trade unions across the U.S. has roughly 13 million members even though the numbers have been declining over the past three decades.
Overall, the UAW has generally followed a strategy that emphasizes cooperation rather than confrontation.
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But in its statement, the AFL-CI0 noted that “Tennessee politicians, especially Gov. Bill Haslam, have continued a drumbeat of baseless assertions that unionization would hurt the state’s economic vitality, completely ignoring the thriving General Motors plant in Spring Hill represented by UAW Local 1853.
“In 2015, Local 42 made the strategic decision to pursue its goal of a collective bargaining agreement in a series of steps. The first step was to seek an election for the plant’s 160 skilled trades workers.”
After opposing the representation vote, Volkswagen initially indicated it would enter collective bargaining if the UAW was elected. The company, which is the midst of a major management crisis, then reneged, offering up its current contention that any union should represent all of the plant’s employees, not just a subset.
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However, the AFL-CIO this week said Volkswagen’s refusal to bargain is not only a reversal of its pre-election commitment but violates its own Declaration on Social Rights and Industrial Relationships.