I live in the same town as this VW plant. There are literally billboards around town saying “Unions = VW Layoffs”. The mayor of the city and a bunch of local repubs also recently did a conference outside the plant telling the employees that they risk their jobs by even having a vote.

I’ve never been so close to such a large union push, and it’s wild how much heat politicians and big-money people will bring down on you. These organizers must be under constant pressure and threats themselves.

Brave people, hope it works out in their favor.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Today I’m featuring a piece by a labor journalist named Mike Elk on a union organizing movement happening right now at a Volkswagen auto plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

During the 2014 UAW election, new non-union assembly line workers at Volkswagen started at $14.50 an hour, which, with cost-of-living differences between Tennessee and the Midwest factored in, is arguably slightly higher.

Dave Dayen at The American Prospect has argued that Biden’s new EPA emission rules force employers to produce more electric cars, limiting threats that Volkswagen would close the plant.

In addition to the decade-long battle to win hearts and minds at the plant, Volkswagen workers also say that the success of the “Stand Up Strike” at the Big Three U.S. automakers helped spur interest in the union.

Instead, anti-union forces at Volkswagen have largely focused on TV and online ads attempting to tie the UAW election to President Biden, who is unpopular in this red state, though perhaps not entirely at the plant.

Vanderbilt University sociology professor Josh Murray, who has spent years studying unionizing efforts in the South, thinks that a win at Volkswagen could create a domino effect.

The original article contains 2,961 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 94%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!