Oh those sneaky unions! Even though employees at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant voted decisively to reject United Auto Workers representation, the UAW wasn't about to be stopped. They're here for the workers! Even if the workers want them gone. They're the Thing That Wouldn't Leave. And in this case, they are strangely getting an assist from management, which cut a separate deal to let the UAW come in and set up a local, despite the workers' vote. That means the UAW can set up operations and start recruiting members, the vote notwithstanding. And if they manage to recruit a majority, they will officially become the collective bargaining representative of the workforce:
Because of Tennessee’s right-to-work laws, plant employees cannot be forced to join the union. This voluntary union will not have the formal recognition and bargaining rights from the German automaker until it represents a majority of the plant’s workforce.
Justin Owen, president and chief executive of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, talked to the employees and community about the economic impact of unionization. Owen released a statement after UAW’s announcement.
“This collusion between VW and the union is a threat to employee freedom and sets a dangerous precedent that legally binding votes are irrelevant, and that unions can run end roads around the expressed consent of employees to get inside their workplaces and create conditions that pressure them to acquiesce,” he said.
The back-door deal between VW and the union seems weird at first glance, but we've seen this sort of thing in Detroit. GM, Ford and Chrysler became resigned long ago to the idea that they could never really be rid of the UAW, so they might as well get in bed with them and cut the best deals they could. That has been a total disaster, but it's a class case of short-term thinking that rules the auto industry. You buy labor peace today, often by making commitments you will regret down the road, but you don't worry about that now. You just keep on keeping on.
In the case of Chattanooga, letting the UAW set up shop despite worker opposition won't have an immediate effect on those who choose not to join. But if the union ever coerces a majority of workers to sign up (and let there be no doubt, coercion is what it would be), then you'll start to see crazy work rules, insane grievance processes and all kinds of other things that will hamper the plant's productivity and add mightily to the cost of labor and production.
The UAW has been saying since the implosion of 2008 thats survival strategy would be to try to organize plants in southern right-to-work states. Clearly the workers in the south don't want them. You have to wonder what the UAW offered Volkswagen (or what they threatened them with) to get management to cut a deal with the union to the screwage of the workers.
