Volkswagen workers in Tennessee voted Friday to join the United Auto Workers union, a huge victory for the once-struggling union as it works on a new campaign to organize Tesla.
After two failed attempts by the UAW in Chattanooga in recent years, Friday’s victory represents a turning point for the 89-year-old union. After years of shrinking membership, a complicated federal criminal investigation and high-profile unionizing failures in the auto industry, UAW President Shawn Fain aims to usher in a new era for his union.
Vote counting by the National Labor Relations Board continued late Friday night, with Reuters reporting that a final tally of 2,628 to 985, or 73 percent of the vote, was in favor of unionization.
After a 46-day strike that hit all three Detroit automakers simultaneously last year resulted in some of the UAW’s richest contracts in recent memory, Fain said the UAW is just getting started .
A massive campaign has since grown as the union encourages thousands of non-union auto workers to sign union cards, targeting nearly 150,000 American auto workers at 13 companies, including those located in outside of Detroit and, more specifically, Tesla.
This week’s victory at Volkswagen makes history as the UAW’s first successful organizing drive with a foreign automaker in the South. After the Volkswagen election, the UAW will move deeper into the South next month for another unionization vote at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama.
Warming up for Tesla
The conquest of the South is just a warm-up for the UAW’s big event: the Tesla organization.
Tesla has never held a union vote at any of its U.S. facilities. The electric car maker has long been a UAW organizing target, but CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive anti-union culture and rhetoric have so far thwarted efforts.
The UAW’s previous campaign against Tesla failed in 2019 when a federal criminal investigation distracted union leaders, sent two former UAW presidents to prison and shook public confidence in the union. The UAW has since undergone government-led reform, and Fain became the union’s first democratically elected president in March 2023.
Some Tesla workers were on the verge of forming a union during the massive UAW strike last fall, a union official told the New York Times. While Tesla initially benefited from these work stoppages, labor experts have warned that UAW dynamics at other automakers could cause problems for Tesla in the long run.
A successful UAW campaign is the last thing Elon Musk needs
Any major conflict with the UAW would only add to the growing list of obstacles Tesla faces this year. After years of growth, Tesla reported a decline in its deliveries in the first quarter of 2024, an early sign that even the electric vehicle leader is not immune to a slowdown in demand for battery-powered cars at industry scale.
On top of that, a year of cutting its car prices to attract more frugal EV buyers has taken a toll on the industry-leading company’s profit margins.
Tesla has already raised factory worker wages after the UAW’s new raises took effect, a move that labor experts say is intended to quell interest in union activity. Many Tesla workers already earn more per hour than their union counterparts.
And in Sweden, Tesla is already grappling with a conflict with striking mechanics that has worried investors since the start of the year.
businessinsider
