Hat tip to Kicks82 for sharing this update this morning from VW's CEO for Chattanooga Mr. Frank Fisher from Reuters:
"There is no connection between our Chattanooga employees' decision about whether to be represented by a union and the decision about where to build a new product for the U.S. market," said Frank Fischer, CEO and chairman of Volkswagen Chattanooga in a statement early Thursday.
At this moment, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga are voting to determine if they want to want unionize. In spite of a significant snow storm, the election is taking place from February 12th to the 14th.
Anti-union groups have gone into full assault mode to stop the workers from voting in the UAW. The TNGOP and third parties continue to threaten and insult Volkswagen workers in order to prevent the workers from organizing.
On Wednesday, Republican Senator Bob Corker told reporters:
“I’ve had conversations today and based on those am assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga.”
This is pretty low-down, but that's what has been happening these last few weeks in Chattanooga. The only other option for Volkswagen in North America is to make it in Mexico and that plant is unionized. All of Volkswagen's other factories are unionized or have what is known as a works council. Chattanooga is their only factory without a union.
Volkswagen wants the UAW. The CEO spoke in favor of letting the workers decide. Here's more from Business Insider:
"Our strong desire is to have a works council present in Chattanooga," Jonathan Browning,Volkswagen Group of America's president and CEO, said in an interview at the Los Angeles Auto Show. "The challenge in a U.S. context is how to bring that into being. That's obviously the point of discussion in terms of how you actually move forward."
The UAW has pushed VW to accept a German-style labor council at the plant in Chattanooga, which would require the involvement of the U.S. union under American labor law. VW said in September it was in talks with the UAW about establishing such a labor council at the plant, which would be a first for the U.S. union.
I attended a UAW event on Tuesday in Chattanooga, the workers are energized and remain optimistic. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Here's a little footage on what is going on:
http://www.youtube.com/...
Sources: The Chattanoogan