Confederate sympathizers and top GOPers unite in auto fight

The inside story behind why Norquist-backed right-wingers urge autoworkers to follow example of Confederate Army

JOSH EIDELSON

Starting tomorrow, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee will vote on becoming the company’s first unionized employees in the United States – a prospect Norquist-backed opponents are urging Chattanoogans to beat back in the style of the Confederate army. The election is a key test of the United Auto Workers’ efforts to organize foreign-owned, Southern-based auto plants, and its bid to marry traditional U.S. collective bargaining with a European-style “works council” so far unseen in the United States.

“I have no doubt we’re going to win the election,” VW employee Dave Gleeson told Salon. Gleeson, a VW team leader whose parents both retired from unionized jobs at General Motors, said he and his co-workers “make good money” but had been spurred to organize by issues with safety and newly unstable scheduling. “I can talk to the plant manager, the plant president,” said Glesson. “They can listen to you, but there’s no power behind it. You don’t have a say in how it goes.”

“We’ve said that when workers have a free, open choice, they’ll choose union representation every time,” UAW International president Bob King told Salon last week. “And I think VW Chattanooga will prove that.” That “open choice” refers to Volkswagen’s commitment, following calls from Chattanooga workers and their unionized counterparts in Germany, not to discourage unionization. In an emailed statement, Volkswagen CEO Frank Fischer said the company “is committed to neutrality and calls upon all third parties to honor the principle of neutrality.”

That’s a message in marked contrast to comments from Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, and junior U.S. Sen. Bob Corker. Sen. Corker told the Associated Press in September that a move “to invite the UAW in is almost beyond belief” and VW could become “a laughingstock in many ways if they inflict this wound.” Corker also told Nooga.com it was “sad to watch” the “environment the UAW has created” at a Tennessee GM plant. (In contrast, In These Times’ Mike Elk reported, Corker said that a visit to the same, already-unionized plant had been “uplifting.”)

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http://www.salon.com/2014/02/11/confederate_sympathizers_and_top_gopers_unite_in_auto_fight/