Following their usual script, the National Right to Work Foundation has found
five workers to file suit against Volkswagen and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) to frustrate workers and the union from organizing a union and forming a labor-management relationship called a works council. Of course, the Right-to-Work group has no legal standing and no business in the process except their mission since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to destroy the American labor movement.
The UAW filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board after the union election, because the results had been tainted by the threats and intimidation of racist Senator Bob Corker. The law, which is inadequate, forbids intimidation and retaliation during the union organizing process. Of course, we now know Corker lied just before the workers’ election claiming that he had talked to Volkswagen officials who said the plant would lose work if the workers unionized. Volkswagen officials refuted Corker’s assertion saying in fact that the company may not locate plants where unionization is not possible.
The UAW has worked with German Works Councils and the giant German metal workers union I G Mettall to facilitate fair union organizing processes in the southern United States. The UAW originally organized two Freightliner truck plants and Thomas Built Buses as a result.
This whole dispute is very important, because huge transnational corporations have been locating to the southern United States for low wages and no benefits, treating American southern workers like similar corporations treat workers in the developing world. In fact, the weakness of American labor laws is a major accelerator in the global economic race to the bottom.
Photo source: DonkeyHotey on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)