Volkswagen Executives Apparently Colluding With Big Labor Bosses to Overturn Chattanooga Workers’ Vote Against Unionization

Last month, Volkswagen executives who were facing intense pressure from German union officials to facilitate the unionization of the VW assembly plant located in Right to Work Tennessee did practically everything they could to help United Auto Workers (UAW/AFL-CIO) union bosses prevail in a union certification election.  Despite VW managers’ assiduous efforts to tilt the electoral playing field in UAW kingpins’ favor, however, a 53% to 47% majority of front-line VW employees in Chattanooga still voted against installing a monopolistic union.

Now UAW bosses and their lawyers are using a novel legal theory to try to persuade National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) bureaucrats to overturn the February election and allow UAW and VW chiefs to “collude to schedule re-run elections over and over again, ad infinitum, until UAW representation is achieved,” charge a group of independent-minded Chattanooga workers represented by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys in a motion filed with the board.

Bill McMorris of the Washington Free Beacon reports (see the link below) that, unfortunately, the workers face an uphill battle. Historically the NLRB has not recognized employees who oppose unionization as having standing to challenge or defend an election result.  Under longstanding federal lobby policies, only union bosses and employers have standing  on matters concerning whether or not a particular union ought to be employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent.

As Right to Work Foundation attorney Glenn Taubman explained to McMorris, the Foundation and its clients hope that the record of brazen collusion between UAW organizers and VW executives in Chattanooga will prompt the NLRB at last to reconsider its traditional opposition to employee “intervention” in union representation cases.  But if the NLRB refuses to reconsider, it will at least demonstrate to the American people, perhaps more clearly than ever before, how stacked federal labor law is against employees’ personal freedom:

“This dual opposition [to worker intervention in the union bosses’ challenge to the election result] shows that VW and the UAW are colluding to unionize the Chattanooga plant and tamp down employee opposition to unionization at all costs,” Taubman told the Washington Free Beacon.

Five employees represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed the motion to intervene. David Reed, a longtime worker in the plant, joined the motion to intervene specifically because he feared that the company and union were colluding.

“Given the neutrality agreement signed by Volkswagen and the UAW and the alignment of these two parties, I believe that I must be heard regarding the UAW’s efforts to overturn our election victory and thereby deny employees our rights under the [National Labor Relations Act],” he said in the filings.

The NLRB is still reviewing the worker petition. Taubman said the decision will have long lasting effects on federal labor practices.

“If the NLRB agrees with these colluding parties and denies the employees any right to be heard in the UAW’s objections case, then it will show America, once and for all, that federal labor law is not designed for employee free choice, but rather is first and foremost for Big Business and Big Labor to strike whatever backroom deals suit them,” he said. “Employees have no rights and no place at the table in such a scheme.”

read more at UAW, VW Colluding to Block Autoworkers from Defending Anti-Union Vote