V drive to organize nonunion facilities, workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, decisively voted on Friday to join the United Auto Workers union.
In an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, 985 people voted against the union, while 2,628 votes, or 73% of the total, were cast in favor of the union.
The UAW, which has the majority of its auto membership at Ford, General Motors, and Jeep parent corporation Stellantis—collectively known as the “Big Three”—would represent more than 4,000 workers at the site. At Volkswagen, the union has already lost two plant-wide ballots, the most recent of which was in 2019 and in which it was defeated by a mere 57 votes.
As on the UAW’s up-to-date findings, the current vote total is 2,628 in favor (73%), with 985 against (27%). Voting at the 4,300-person plant got underway on Wednesday.
For the industry as well as the union, the stakes are very high. Automakers have been expanding their facilities below the Mason-Dixon line throughout the years, as salaries and union strength are typically lower than in the Midwest. The UAW no longer has as much influence on industry standards for working conditions as it previously did since it was unable to organize plants in the South.
On Friday night, President Joe Biden praised the laborers and the UAW while denouncing Lee and other Republican governors for a joint statement they released earlier in the week urging workers to vote “no.”
Peoples told HuffPost that because of the amount of money Volkswagen and Tennessee had put in the facility when it first opened in 2011, employees were less afraid to organize for fear of losing their jobs. She was confident about a union victory for multiple reasons, including that.