From The Associated Press: Tennessee Volkswagen workers to vote on union membership in test of UAW’s plan to expand its ranks
Berry Craig
By TOM KRISHER
DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers’ ambitious drive to expand its reach to nonunion factories across the South and elsewhere faces a key test Friday night, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will finish voting on whether to join the union.
The UAW’s ranks in the auto industry have dwindled over the years as foreign-based companies with nonunion U.S. plants have sold increasingly more vehicles.
Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019 as federal prosecutors were breaking up a bribery-and-embezzlement scandal at the union.