VW Workers in TN to Governor Bill Lee: Suck It

Updated April 21, 2024

In 2014 when Volkswagen plant workers in Chattanooga held their first vote on joining the UAW, Senator Bob Corker (R) and Gov. Bill Haslam stuck their sharp dirty noses into workers' business ahead of the vote.  That vote failed.

Then in 2019 during the lead-up to a second vote, Gov. Bill Lee actively campaigned for international corporate interests and against the interests of workers in his own state.  Workers lost that vote by 57 ballots.  

So it was nothing new this month when Lee once against chose the side of the corporate elite against the workers of Tennessee.  On April 8, he publicly warned that a vote to join the UAW would be "a big mistake." This time, however, workers ignored the Republican fearmongering and voted in the best economic interests of their families. 

 A preliminary tally released by the company showed workers favored union representation by a count of 2,628 to 985, a nearly 3-1 margin. The landslide win gives the union a crucial toehold in the anti-union South.

And so VW Chattanooga becomes the first auto plant in the South to unionize by election since the 1940s. 

Congratulations, workers!