Company looking to hand over its Chattanooga plant to the UAW, in spite of worker rejection of the union 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Volkswagen management is considering a course of action that would hand over its Chattanooga assembly plant to the United Auto Workers (UAW) in spite of that union's failure to win a February secret ballot election, the Center for Worker Freedom (CWF) has learned.

In results announced on February 14, VW workers rejected the union in a 712 to 626 vote after a three-day election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).   

Nevertheless, sources tell CWF that Volkswagen is considering disregarding the election results and accepting the authorization cards the union claims to have collected last year, even though the alleged cards have never been examined by a third party and a number of VW workers have complained to labor authorities that they had been tricked or coerced into signing such cards.  

Such a suppression of the democratically expressed wishes of its employees would constitute a betrayal without precedent in the history of American labor relations, says CWF Executive Director Matt Patterson.  

"The workers at Volkswagen Chattanooga were force-fed UAW propaganda for over two years, yet still courageously and unequivocally rejected the union," says Patterson.  "If the company lets the union walk in anyway, it will have made clear its contempt not only for its workers and the state of Tennessee, but the democratic principle itself."

 A spokesman for the NLRB refused to comment to the CWF on whether previously collected union authorization cards could be legally accepted by a company after the results of a secret ballot election have been announced.

 The Center for Worker Freedom is a special project of Americans for Tax Reform.