The United Auto Workers (UAW) have just marked one of the most important milestones in the union’s history: they have officially reached a tentative agreement on a first contract with Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The agreement, reached on February 4, is the culmination of 502 days of bargaining and a successful strike authorization vote by a supermajority of workers in October of last year. It includes a 20 percent wage increase over four years, reduced health care costs, job security protections, the right to strike over health and safety grievances, the recognition of skilled trades, and many other protections and benefits. It will now proceed to a vote by the union’s members.
This marks the first time the union has successfully organized and bargained an agreement with a foreign-owned, nonunion auto company in the South and lays the ground for further inroads at other employers across the region. It is likely that the Volkswagen contract will result in yet another “UAW bump” for at least some autoworkers at nonunion auto companies whose employers have tried to blunt enthusiasm for unionizing, much like they did following the ratification of the historic UAW contracts at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis in 2023.
This contract at Volkswagen not only is life-changing for the workers who won it and further expands the UAW’s density in its core industry. It also provides the threat of a good example. This agreement punctures the decades-old narrative that workers can’t organize the South. The victory in Tennessee provides a clear demonstration that workers can win when they combine strong organizing and disciplined bargaining and can build to a credible strike threat.
Workers at Volkswagen, the second most profitable auto company in the world, voted overwhelmingly to unionize in April 2024 and kicked off bargaining five months later on September 20 with a list of nearly seven hundred demands.
That sounds like a lot, but it appears less…
Auteur: Chris Brooks
