VW on radar: UAW chief sets sights on Southern automakers

timesfreepress.comVolkswagen_4

The UAW is coming! The UAW is coming!

It’s not quite Paul Revere’s famous warning, but it’s true nonetheless. Yes, the United Auto Workers union, having left Detroit a shell of its former glory, has been forced to cast its gaze to the foreign-owned auto plants in the South.

Volkswagen has operated an assembly plant in Chattanooga for the past two years, where it churns out the very popular Passat sedan. The Passat won the 2012 Motor Trend Car of the Year award — which judges models on a variety of value and safety criteria — propelling it to sales of more than 117,000 that year alone (though growth has slowed somewhat in 2013, forcing VW to announce it will cut about 500 jobs).

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/apr