A year after Tennessee auto workers rejected unionization by a clear margin, a pro-market group is trying to find out whether President Obama’s Department of Labor tried to tip the scales in a hotly contested union vote.
The National Right To Work Foundation, a business-backed nonprofit, is demanding that the Labor Department turn over any communications it has had with IG Metall, a German union that represents Volkswagen workers. The foundation believes the federal government may have assisted the foreign union in its efforts to organize a Chattanooga, Tenn., Volkswagen plant against the workers’ own wishes.
“The Foundation’s FOIA request seeks to uncover any communications between the Department of Labor, VW’s Global Works Council, and the IG Metall union. Foundation staff attorneys hope to determine if the Department of Labor is actively assisting these organizations in their efforts to unionize VW’s Chattanooga facilities,” NRTW said in a statement.
IG Metall pressured VW’s management to aide its American counterpart, the United Auto Workers, in that union’s failed bid last year to represent the Chattanooga plant’s workers. Despite VW’s tacit backing, Chattanooga workers said no to the union in February. The American union has continued to try to organize the workers since then.
The foundation alleges that IG Metall’s efforts on behalf of UAW should have triggered the federal disclosure requirements under the National Labor Relations Act but that the German union has not made any fillings. NRTW said Labor Secretary Tom Perez had rebuffed its earlier requests for any communications between department and IG Metall, providing no “substantive” response.
“German labor organizations shouldn’t be exempt from American disclosure guidelines when they operate in the United States,” said NRTW President Mark Mix. “Did the UAW make promises to IG Metall to obtain its support that could affect the wages and working conditions of VW Chattanooga employees down the road? Is the Department of Labor actively supporting the UAW and IG Metall’s efforts to unionize the Chattanooga plant? Chattanooga VW workers facing the prospect of another unionization drive deserve to know the answers to these questions, which is why we filed this FOIA request.”
A spokesman for the Labor Department, which is closed due to Monday’s federal holiday, could not be reached. Representatives of NRTW, UAW and VW could not be reached at press time either.
Organizing the Chattanooga plant has been a major project for UAW, which is trying to make inroads in southern states as manufacturing flees the heavily unionized state of Michigan. Right-to-work laws in Tennessee and other states prohibit union contracts in which companies must require workers either to join or to support a union as a condition of employment. Numerous foreign car manufacturers have located in the south, and the region’s lack of a union culture is widely believed to be a reason why.
European law gives unions more influence over companies. IG Metall has a representative on VW’s Global Works Council, which has effective veto power over many company decisions. VW helped UAW’s bid to organize the Chattanooga plant by allowing UAW organizers onto the plant, requiring workers to to attend meetings where they heard the union’s pitches and barring any anti-union groups from the premises. At the time, VW officials indicated that having a union would allow it to expand production at the plant. Despite these extraordinary pro-union measures, workers voted 712-626 to reject UAW.
The union initially opposed allowing the workers to vote at all on whether they wanted to join the union, saying that its claim that it had demonstrated majority support through a Card Check election was sufficient. VW officials called for a federally monitored election instead, resulting in UAW’s rejection by the workers.
The union blamed its loss on opposition from the Volunteer State’s Republican lawmakers. Sen. Bob Corker issued a statement during the February unionization vote claiming — based on his own personal sources connected to the company — that VW would expand production if workers rejected the union. UAW complained to the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that enforces labor law, saying the statement tainted the vote and requested a do-over, but it subsequently withdrew its complaint.
UAW has continued its efforts to organize the Chattanooga plant by creating an unofficial “local” for workers at the plant. In November, UAW said it expected that VW would announce “a new policy in Chattanooga that will lead to recognition of Local 42.” Later that month, VW said it would “engage” with worker representative groups but not collectively bargain with them.
