They came and they saw, but the United Auto Workers Union failed to conquer. The official plant vote last week for unionization failed, and so the Chattanooga-based manufacturing facility will remain one of the only Volkswagen plants in the entire world that is not unionized.
The vote took place over three days last week and the final vote was 626 “yays” to 712 “nays”. There was concern that foul weather last week would impact the voting, but a full 89-percent of eligible workers cast their ballot. The plant currently builds only Passat sedans, but Volkswagen is looking for a plant to build an upcoming 3-row SUV and Chattanooga is on a short list. There were some controversial reports stating that if the UAW vote succeeded, VW would send the new model to Mexico.
As a Tennessean with close proximity to the plant I have been granted the pleasure of having several impromptu conversations with plant workers. While the vote was fairly close, it seems that quite a large portion of workers who were unable to vote were against the UAW proposal as well.
Now that all this commotion is behind us, we can start to focus on the real important issues that are facing US fans of Volkswagen; when can we buy a Mk VII GTI already?!
