CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Republicans fighting a
yearslong unionization effort at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee
painted a grim picture in the days leading up to last week’s vote. They
said if Chattanooga employees joined the United Auto Workers, jobs would
go elsewhere and incentives for the company would disappear.
Now
that workers have rejected the UAW in a close vote, attention turns to
whether the GOP can fulfill its promises that keeping the union out
means more jobs will come rolling in, the next great chapter in the
flourishing of foreign auto makers in the South.
Regardless of
what political consequences, if any, Republicans would face if that
fails to happen, the Volkswagen vote established a playbook for denying
the UAW its goal of expanding into foreign-owned plants in the region,
which the union itself has called the key to its long-term future.
On
the first of three days of voting at the Chattanooga plant, U.S. Sen.
Bob Corker all but guaranteed the German automaker would announce within
two weeks of a union rejection that it would build a new midsized sport
utility vehicle at its only U.S. factory instead of sending the work to
Mexico.
"What they wanted me to know, unsolicited, that if the
vote goes negative, they’re going to announce immediately that they’re
going to build a second line," Corker told The Associated Press of his
conversations with unnamed Volkswagen officials.
The company
reiterated its longstanding position that the union vote would not
factor into the decision, and Corker acknowledged that he had no
information on whether the company would also expand if the union won.
But
the implication was clear, and union leaders said after the vote that
the senator’s statements — coming in concert with threats from state
lawmakers to torpedo state incentives if the UAW won — played a key role
in the vote.
The UAW was defeated in a 712-626 vote Friday night.
UAW
President Bob King called it unprecedented for Corker and other elected
officials to have "threatened the company with no incentives,
threatened workers with a loss of product."
"It’s outrageous," King said.
Corker,
who had originally announced he would refrain from making public
comments during the election, changed course last week after he said the
union tried to use his silence to chastise other critics. Corker said
after the vote that he was happy he joined the fray.
"I have no
idea what effect we may or may not have had," Corker said. "But I think I
would have forever felt tremendous remorse if … I had not re-engaged
and made sure that people understand other arguments that needed to be
put forth."
Corker’s claim that a no vote would quickly mean more
jobs actually fit in with an assertion Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam
leveled days earlier, when he said a union win would hurt the state’s
ability to attract auto parts suppliers and other future business.
"From our viewpoint, from what we’re hearing from other companies, it matters what happens in that
vote," he said.
Corker
said the day after the vote that he and other state officials planned
to restart discussions with Volkswagen officials this week about state
subsidies for expanded production in Chattanooga.
Many viewed VW
as the union’s best chance to win in the South because other automakers
have not been as welcoming to organized labor as Volkswagen.
Labor
interests make up half of the supervisory board at VW in Germany, and
they questioned why the Chattanooga plant is the company’s only major
factory worldwide without formal worker representation.
VW wanted a
German-style "works council" in Chattanooga to give employees, blue
collar and salaried workers, a say over working conditions. But the
company said U.S. law won’t allow it without an independent union.
Several
workers who cast votes against the union said they still support the
idea of a works council — they just don’t want to have to work through
the UAW.
Frank Fischer, the CEO and chairman of the Volkswagen
plant in Chattanooga, said the vote Friday wasn’t a rejection of a works
council. He said the goal remains to determine the best method for
establishing a works council that serves employees’ interest, and
Volkswagen America’s production in accordance with U.S. law.
Fischer
did not address what the vote means for potential expansion at the
plant other than to say "our commitment to Tennessee is a long-term
investment."
The German automaker’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn,
announced at the Detroit auto show last month that the seven-passenger
SUV will go on sale in the U.S. in 2016. Winterkorn said the new model
will be part of a five-year, $7 billion investment in North America.
Winterkorn
said Volkswagen is committed to its goal of selling 1 million vehicles
per year in the U.S. by 2018. The company sold just over half that many
in 2013.
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Krisher reported from Detroit.
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