UAW Drops Volkswagen Union Election Appeal

Remember when the United Auto Workers lost in a unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and filed an appeal to overturn the election results? It was all a charade.

The UAW cited “extraordinary interference” from Republican officials Gov. Bill Haslam and Sen. Bob Corker as the reason for a re-vote, but as it turns out the only group that was asserting “extraordinary interference” was the UAW.

Today the National Labor Relations Board Atlanta Regional Office was set to hear UAW’s appeal of the February union election results. But hours before the hearing, the UAW decided to drop its appeal, which means the outcome of the secret-ballot election will stand.

UAW President Bob King commented, “The unprecedented political interference by Gov. Haslam, Sen. Corker and others was a distraction for Volkswagen employees and a detour from achieving Tennessee’s economic priorities”… “The UAW is ready to put February’s tainted election in the rearview mirror and instead focus on advocating for new jobs and economic investment in Chattanooga.”

Yet the UAW is the outside political organization that interfered in a fair and free secret-ballot election for Volkswagen workers. Throughout UAW’s organizing campaign, it attempted to use deceitful tactics to bypass a secret-ballot election in favor of card-check to organize the Volkswagen workers.

Read “How the UAW Lost Tennessee: Gaming U.S. Labor Law Failed to Overcome Worker Opposition” for an account of the UAW’s efforts to subvert a secret-ballot election in order to organize workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga.