Zaune wrote:He's got a point, though. You're talking about decisions taken when most of VW's current senior management were probably still in school, if they were even born. The people who made those decisions aren't just retired, they are quite probably dead or very nearly so.
To be perfectly honest, if you have to go that far back to find something with which to criticise VW's conduct in its dealings with organised labour then you might as well bring up its ties to Nazi Germany while you're at it.
If I was bringing that bit of VW's history up, there'd be slave labour, infanticide, torture and other things where the Brazilian shenanigans would simply pale in comparison. However, the 1960s and 1970s were the initial period of expansion for many modern multinationals, and a very critical one, too. It is important to remember just how they made their overseas fortunes. VW were involved with the union-cooption and anti-union practices in South Africa in the 2000s and union-busting in Mexico in the 1990s, for example, and I see no reason to give them any slack over their supposed "good history" which is not good at all. The introduction of the Auto 5000 model in the 2000s at VW's plants to boost profitability included pay slashes and a 42-hour work week. It is well-known that VW's numerous acquisitions which made it, for a time, a number 1 automobile megacorporation in the world, were creating units within the group with unequal wages, unequal labour conditions and the like. Attacks against union members were reported for example in Russia, where VW also operates a plant since 2000s.
Not that I'm giving any slack to any corporation which I know has a history of repressing the workers, dealing in conflict minerals, employing war criminals et cetera - and that concerns pretty much about every large company today.
So if you think the examples above demonstrate good history, what is "bad history" in your view? Machine-gunning your workers when they march, like with Ford in 1930s?
Not to whitewash bad decisions, but comparing Brazil and South Africa to modern day US or western Europe is different. A year or two ago quite a number of people where killed for example when South African miners and other workers went on strike. Given it's Africa, that's something I would be surprised if it didn't happen.
In the US and Western Europe and other first world nations, I can rarely remember a major strike turning deadly anytime in the last decade or so.
Your article mentioning the Brazilian army being used against unions for example wouldn't fly in the US or Germany for example. any US Army or German Army officer involved in such a plot would at the least be forced to retire, if not court martialed and demoted.
Patroklos wrote:If I am understanding the actual debate in Tennessee right now its not whether or not workers should be alowed onto the board, both the company and politicians are okay with that. The issue is due to federal law this would be illegal unless those workers are also part of a union (probably a hold over from union bosses wanting to control their members) which doesn't currently exist.
I don't see any reason a union's involvement should be enshrined by law any more than it should be prevented by law.
There are actually good reasons that there are laws against company sponsored unions. The most important power of an union is that they represent a huge amount of workers and they can hurt employers with a strike. Company sponsored could break that. And if companies give their workers "choice" to join one, the workers might "voluntarily" choose to not get fired or mobbed. In Germany that is (mostly) not a problem because company councils and unions are different institutions and there is a legal framework to support that. So I can see why the UAW would like to prevent a precedent. It might make no sense for this plant, but it could be abused somewhere else.
But as I understand it, there is turmoil because local politicians want to avoid having an unionised factory to keep their history clean. I assume that is both to not scar investors and to avoid giving liberal politicians a support base.
Tennessee Volkswagen plant votes against union in UAW defeat
By Bernie Woodall
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) - In a stinging defeat that could accelerate the decades-long decline of the United Auto Workers, employees voted against union representation at Volkswagen AG's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, which had been seen as organized labor's best chance to expand in the U.S. South.
Retired Tennessee Circuit Court Judge Sam Payne, who oversaw the count, said workers voted against UAW representation by 712 to 626.
Advocates on both sides sought to sway workers' opinions to the very end. Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga who helped win the VW plant, said on Wednesday after the first day of voting that VW would expand the factory if the union was rejected.
"Needless to say, I am thrilled," Corker said in a statement after the results were disclosed. An announcement of whether a new seven-passenger crossover vehicle will be produced in Chattanooga or in Mexico could come as early as next week, VW sources told Reuters.
Pro-union advocates blamed Republicans for trying to manipulate the outcome, and President Barack Obama waded into the discussion early on Friday, accusing Republican politicians of being more concerned about German shareholders than U.S. workers.
But legal experts earlier had said that any challenge of the outcome, based on Corker's comments, would be difficult, given broad free speech protection for U.S. Senators.
The loss in Tennessee could further dent the prestige of the UAW, whose membership has plummeted 75 percent since 1979 and now stands at just under 400,000.
The decision also is likely to reinforce the widely held notion that the UAW cannot make significant inroads in a region that historically has been steadfastly against organized labor and where all foreign-owned assembly plants employ nonunion workers.
The results were particularly surprising for UAW supporters because VW had allowed the union access to the factory and officially stayed neutral on the vote, while other manufacturers have been hostile to organized labor.
Local anti-union organizer Mike Burton cheered the results. "Not on our watch," he exulted.
"We think it's unfortunate that there was some outside influence exerted into this process," a red-eyed Gary Casteel, regional director of the UAW, told reporters after the results were announced, adding that the process needed to be "evaluated".
For VW, the stakes also were high. The German automaker invested $1 billion in the Chattanooga plant, which began building Passat mid-size sedans in April 2011, after being awarded more than $577 million in state and local incentives.
VW executives have said the new crossover vehicle, due in 2016 and known internally as CrossBlue, could be built at either the Chattanooga plant or in Mexico.
Some 89 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, Judge Payne said. The election was held over three days.
(Additional reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Andreas Cremer in Berlin; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Ross Colvin and Ken Wills)
ASVS('97)/SDN('03)
"Whilst human alchemists refer to the combustion triangle, some of their orcish counterparts see it as more of a hexagon: heat, fuel, air, laughter, screaming, fun." Dawn of the Dragons
From what I've been hearing, a lot of people where not so much opposed to the idea of some form of union at the plant, so much as they where not interested in the idea of the UAW specifically being involved with the plant, and any baggage, for good or bad, that the UAW has. I have a feeling if they could have or would be allowed to arrange some sort of union that has 0% of involvement or influence with the UAW, they probably would have passed the vote in favor of allowing a union.
And Welf, you may be right in regards to locals, both politicians and not fearing that it might scare of investors in the region. In addition to this main plant, VW has also built a parts distribution center in Roane County, TN, about an hour or so north of Chattanooga a couple of years back, seperate from the main Chattanooga location, but still likely having business tied to it somewhat. Doing google searches, a German chemical company and a German auto parts supplier also have started massive new operations in that area of the state in the last couple of years, and there are several major Japanese owned auto suppliers listed in the east TN region as well.
Rycon67 wrote:And Welf, you may be right in regards to locals, both politicians and not fearing that it might scare of investors in the region. In addition to this main plant, VW has also built a parts distribution center in Roane County, TN, about an hour or so north of Chattanooga a couple of years back, seperate from the main Chattanooga location, but still likely having business tied to it somewhat. Doing google searches, a German chemical company and a German auto parts supplier also have started massive new operations in that area of the state in the last couple of years, and there are several major Japanese owned auto suppliers listed in the east TN region as well.
But none of those are going to be hostile to worker unions. And if anything, what better way to scare off investors than to wage a battle against them about how they run their factory?
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.
You win. There, I have said it.
Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
From what I've been reading, a lot of the workers didn't seem convinced that allowing in the UAW was the only way to do a Works Council - and that was something that the anti-UAW people were selling as an arguing point (including Bob Corker in an interview with the Washington Post).
And if they don't have that, then it's not clear how much benefit the UAW was going to be for the workers. The UAW has already agreed to a lower-tiered wage entry level for new workers up in Michigan. If they can't get better wages or benefits, and conditions already seem good for the workers in question, then what's the point of joining a union?
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard
"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." -Margaret Atwood
Unions have an image problem of their own making in the South outside of any other branding from other groups to deal with as well. As a case in point when Boeing was trying to open their South Carolina plant the IMA basically called them a third world workforce of scab rednecks and fought tooth and nail to prevent the project. While that tactic makes a bit of sense from a limited Washington machinist's perspective it equates to denying jobs other Americans with a large helping of regional bigotry. When auto plants and other industry started moving south in the last decade it was the same deal. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the organizations engaging in that sort of behavior are not trusted when they show up again claiming to help. If the UAW really had its way there wouldn't be a plant in Tennessee at all.
