The National Labor Relations Board is ordering Volkswagen to engage in bargaining with a group of skilled-trades workers who voted to be represented by the United Auto Workers union at the German automaker’s lone US plant in Tennessee.
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U.S. labour regulators have ordered Volkswagento negotiate with maintenance workers at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee who voted to unionise, according to the United Automobile Workers. The automaker argued that it could not support the UAW’s efforts because all of its workers should vote on union representation as a group.
The NLRB’s decision to allow Volkswagen’s skilled-trades workers to seek union representation draws on the board’s landmark 2011 ruling in favor of certified nursing assistants at Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile, Alabama, that paved the way for the formation of more of what labor opponents deride as “micro units”.
Volkswagen has said it plans to take legal action to appeal the NLRB ruling.
A 2014 vote among all hourly workers at the Volkswagen plant resulted in a 712-626 defeat for the union that leaders blamed on unfounded fears sown by labor opponents before the election.
Gary Casteel, secretary-treasurer of the UAW and director of the International Union’s Transnational Department, said the appeal will not benefit Volkswagen employees at the Chattanooga plant. “This is why we disagree with the decision to separate Volkswagen maintenance and production workers”.
VW filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C.to appeal the NLRB decision on Tuesday that ordered VW to recognize the UAW after a majority of the maintenance workers in the VW assembly plant in Chattanooga voted to unionize a year ago.
“As always, Volkswagen respects the right of all of our employees to decide the question of union representation”, according to a statement from the company.
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“We’re disappointed that Volkswagen is continuing to thumb its nose at the federal government”, Casteel said in a prepared statement.
