A day before a vote on union representation at the Volkswagen factory in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee and five other Southern governors are warning workers against voting for a union, saying doing so would jeopardize their jobs.
About 4,300 workers at VW’s Chattanooga plant will begin voting on Wednesday on behalf of the United Auto Workers union. Vote totals are expected to be tabulated Friday evening by the National Labor Relations Board.
The union election is the first test of the UAW’s efforts to organize non-union auto plants nationwide after its success last fall after striking against Detroit automakers Ford, General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis.
The governors said in a statement Tuesday that they had been working to bring good-paying jobs to their states and that “unionization would certainly jeopardize our states’ jobs.”
“We are seeing this in the fallout from the Detroit Three strike with those automakers rethinking investments and cutting jobs,” the note reads. “Putting businesses in our states in that position is the last thing we want to do.”
Lee said in a statement that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have signed on to oppose the campaign of the UAW. The offices of Ivey, Kemp and Reeves confirmed their involvement, and McMaster posted the statement on his website. A message seeking comment was left for Abbott on Tuesday.
The governors said they want to continue growing manufacturing in their states, but a successful union initiative “will stop this growth in its tracks, to the detriment of American workers.” The governors also said foreign auto workers closed plants after successful union drives.
“In America we respect our workforce and do not need to pay a third party to tell us who can pick up a box or flip a switch,” they wrote.
The UAW declined to comment.
After a series of strikes against Detroit automakers last year, UAW President Shawn Fain said he would simultaneously target more than a dozen non-union auto plants, including those run by Tesla, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz , Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda and others.
The initiative affects nearly 150,000 workers in factories across much of the South, where unionization rates are low and the UAW has had little success recruiting new members.
Earlier this month, a majority of workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, filed paperwork with the NLRB to vote on representing the UAW.
UAW pacts with Detroit automakers include 25% wage increases by the contracts’ expiration in April 2028. As the cost of living rises, workers will see raises of about 33% for a top assembly wage of $42 an hour, or more. of $87,000 per year, plus thousands in annual profit sharing.
VW said Tuesday that its employees can earn more than $60,000 a year excluding an 8% attendance bonus. The company says it pays above the area’s median household income.
Volkswagen said it respects workers’ right to a democratic process and to determine who should represent their interests. “We will fully support the NLRB’s vote so that every team member has the opportunity to vote in privacy on this important decision,” the company said.
Some workers at the VW plant, which makes Atlas SUVs and ID.4 electric vehicles, said they want to have more say in hours, benefits, pay and more.
The union has come close to representing VW plant workers in two previous elections. In 2014 and 2019, workers narrowly rejected a factory union under the UAW.