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VW workers in Tennessee start campaign to join UAW

Written by Ethan Bernard

December 7, 2023

Volkswagen Group of America workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., have launched a campaign to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

“Over 1,000 workers have signed union authorization cards in less than a week and gone public with their union drive at Volkswagen’s only US plant in Chattanooga,” UAW said in a press release on Thursday.

The union called the move “a surprise breakthrough in the UAW’s national campaign to organize all non-union autoworkers at 13 companies.”

The UAW noted that over 30% of VW workers in Chattanooga have joined the movement, “marking a major milestone in their organizing campaign.”

The union added that this growing trend among non-union autoworkers across the US “builds off the success of the UAW’s ‘Stand-Up’ Strike” at the Detroit-area “Big Three” automakers. Around 50,000 workers struck for over 40 days starting in mid-September to “win record contracts at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.”

“People are standing up like never before,” Steve Cochran, a VW employee and a leader of the workers moving to unionize at the automaker, said in the release. “There are a lot of young workers in the plant now and this generation wants respect.”

A spokesperson for VW USA did not return a request for comment by time of publication.

Ethan Bernard

Ethan Bernard is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. He previously worked for American Metal Market as a copy editor in the New York office for two years starting in 2008. Later, he copy edited AMM’s monthly magazine on a freelance basis from 2015 until 2017. With experience in financial copywriting and textbook publishing, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and an MFA. in Creative Writing from New York University. He can be reached at ethan@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7871.

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