Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Collect Strike Pledges as Company Stalls at Table

Volkswagen has dug in its heels in first-contract negotiations at its assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where workers won a landslide victory in last year’s union drive.

“We’re still waiting for the company to agree to a proposal that simply affords us a fair share,” auto worker Steve Cochran testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on October 8. “We are living with health care that forces people into bankruptcy. We are living with no protection from inflation.”

In March, Volkswagen cut shifts, sowing fear and uncertainty during contract negotiations. In late September it presented its “last, best, and final offer,” and issued threats about job and benefit losses if workers authorized a strike. The union is gathering pledge cards for a potential strike.

The 3-to-1 yes vote covering the plant’s entire 4,300-member workforce in April 2024 was a landmark victory for the United Auto Workers, which had lost plant-wide elections here in 2014 and 2019. This was the first auto plant in the South to unionize through an election since 1940, and the first foreign-owned factory.

But Volkswagen hasn’t accepted defeat. “The company has repeatedly violated labor law to delay us our fair share,” Cochran told Congress. “They have unlawfully cut jobs at the plant. They have unlawfully refused to bargain in good faith.”

It must have felt like Groundhog Day for Cochran as he packed his bags for Washington, D.C. He made a similar trip to Germany back in 2016, when Volkswagen was refusing to bargain with his small unit of skilled-trades workers after they voted to unionize in 2015. They never did reach a deal. Almost a decade later, he’s still traveling to the halls of political power to hold Volkswagen to account.

CARROT AND STICK

Volkswagen’s offer would raise wages 20 percent through 2029, starting with an immediate pay hike of 5 percent. The UAW is demanding a 24 percent raise to bring wages into parity with the Big 3 automakers. Job security, fair pay, affordable healthcare, and respect on the job are major sticking points.  

“We are seeking language that protects you from plant closing, outsourcing, secures product commitments, and protect you in the event Volkswagen sells the Chattanooga facility,” said UAW lead bargainer Chuck Browning on October 15. "If they say there’s nothing to fear, then they should put it in writing. Without that commitment, we’re building our union house on sand.”

The company is also offering to introduce profit-sharing, add a cost-of-living allowance and two new floating holidays, and pay a ratification bonus of $4,000—sweetened by $1,500 if the deal is approved by October 31.

Besides carrots, the company has also brought out the stick. It has sent letters to workers claiming that if they sign a strike pledge card, they’ll lose their right to vote on a strike, which the UAW says is false.

VW has also claimed falsely that workers have no right to strike, and that doing so would constitute job abandonment.

And it has threatened that strikers will have to return their leased vehicles and lose access to the program for a year. The current policy permits workers to continue their leases while on leave and make up any missed payment when they return. Browning has accused the company of violating federal labor law by changing the policy to punish workers.

Volkswagen made $17 billion in profits in 2023, and paid CEO Oliver Blume $11 million in total compensation. In the hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders asked whether VW can afford a decent contract.

“Less than 4 cents for every dollar they make goes to the worker in Chattanooga for the cars we sell,” Cochran replied.

BACKWARDS BARGAINING

The UAW has filed unfair labor practice charges against Volkswagen for intimidating workers, cutting jobs without bargaining, and bad-faith bargaining, including failing to bring representatives with decision-making authority to negotiations and making incomplete proposals full of clerical errors.

So far there are about 300 tentative agreements, and the company withdrew two agreements, including a $100-a-week childcare subsidy. The union has charged Volkswagen with regressive bargaining, moving backwards on these issues.

This behavior is more of the same from Volkswagen; in the run-up to the April 2024 election, the UAW charged the company with five unfair labor practices, including surveillance, threats, and coercive work rules.

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And after workers at a Volkswagen distribution center in New Jersey filed for an election to join the UAW in March, the company went on a law-breaking rampage, intimidating, disciplining, and threatening workers. The National Labor Relations Board regional director intervened and ordered the company to recognize and bargain with the union in late September.

“These workers did exactly what you’re supposed to do if you want a better life on the job, and Volkswagen treated them like dirt,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a statement. “Because these badass workers refused to give up, they were able to overcome the company’s harassment, intimidation, and illegal conduct, and will now have a seat at the table.” But, like the workers in Chattanooga, they will have to fight for a first contract.

GETTING AWAY WITH IT

First-contract fights are a longtime focus of proposed labor law reform. The path is riddled with obstacles. Employers have every incentive to break the law and stall negotiations; the penalties are so minor that they’re treated as a cost of doing business. Reaching a contract can take years, and sometimes the union never gets there.

The Faster Labor Contract Act, introduced in the Senate earlier this year by Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), would require employers to bargain with newly organized workers within 10 days of voting to form a union. “If the Faster Labor Contracts Act were already the law, us at Volkswagen might have a first contract today,” said Cochran.

He also mentioned the PRO Act, or Protect the Right to Organize, which would strengthen the laws against (and penalties for) employer interference and intimidation in union drives. Democrats have been introducing it since 2019; it has passed twice in the House, but never got through the Senate.

“But if you can’t pass those bills, you can still make union-busting stop,” Cochran said. “You can fully fund the National Labor Relations Board so that it is able to do its job.”

With federal regulatory agencies paralyzed and their workers sacked by Trump, talking about how to change the law is like planning renovations of a house that’s on fire.

“Before you talk about changing the law,” said Cochran, “understand that Volkswagen and many Fortune 500 companies like it are breaking the law every day… If you don’t enforce the law to begin with, what’s the point?”