Republican lawmakers make vocal push against Chattanooga VW plant union effort

While Volkswagen tries to remain neutral in its workers’ push to unionize the Chattanooga assembly plant, several Tennessee Republicans are taking a different approach. 

Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, state Sen. Bo Watson of Hixson and state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood of Signal Mountain, all Republicans, have encouraged workers to vote against joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) union during a vote to be held from April 17 to 19. 

Hagerty told the HuffPost that a union risked “liberty and freedoms.” In a letter signed by five other governors, Lee warned that a unionization effort in Chattanooga could stop “growth in its tracks” regarding the future of auto manufacturing jobs across the U.S. South. 

But not every Chattanooga lawmaker is against the organizing effort. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Chattanooga told the HuffPost he’s staying out of the union drive, reversing his 2019 stance when he opposed an organizing effort. 

Democratic Rep. Yusuf Hakeem of Chattanooga is backing the UAW’s organizing effort. Hakeem was the only lawmaker who supported the union at a Republican event held outside the Chattanooga plant earlier this month.

Watson and Hazlewood joined several other local Chattanooga Republican officials at the event, where they called a UAW victory a win for Democrats.  

The UAW’s latest attempt to unionize the Chattanooga plant follows a series of strikes earlier this year against Detroit automakers, which resulted in significant wage increases for the workers. 

The auto union hoped that the success of those strikes would help organize auto manufacturing across the U.S. South. The Chattanooga plant will serve as its first test of this plan. The UAW has failed to organize the plant twice before.

Right-to-work goes both ways

Tennessee voters approved in 2022 a right-to-work amendment to the state constitution, which allows workers to opt out of paying union dues. The state already had a law guaranteeing the right-to-work, but the amendment would make it even harder to reverse the law.

Watson cited this as one of the reasons auto plants and other companies were moving to the state. 

“Some of the more heavily unionized states, I think their track record is those (unions) have dampening effects on economic development,” Watson said. He added that companies are moving out of Midwest states to the South where unions are less prevalent.

But, Billy Dycus, the president of the Tennessee AFL-CIO Labor Council, said Republican efforts against a union showed their hypocrisy on the issue of worker rights. 

“They’re talking out both sides of their mouths,” Dycus said. “They pushed for right-to-work legislation so people could choose to be part of a union. Then they come out against the union by fear-mongering and trying to influence the vote.”

Union in Chattanooga versus West Tennessee

Hakeem, who worked at a union factory as far back as the 1960s, contended unions are needed to improve pay and conditions for employees.

“Some entities are dollar-driven, and it’s secondary to them, the work environment or wages for people because you feel like you have control in the sense you feel you can treat people any kind of way without a union,” Hakeem said.

Unionization at Volkswagen would create “more balance” for workers to improve pay, work environment and representation, he added.

While Tennessee leaders are taking a strong stand against UAW’s organization at Volkswagen, that same mindset is absent at the BlueOvalCity facility in Haywood County, where Ford is building a $5.6 billion electric truck plant that officials expect to be organized by the UAW.

Lee and the State Legislature approved an incentive package totaling $1 billion to lure Ford to the rural West Tennessee area. Hagerty also previously supported the idea of a unionized auto manufacturers coming to Tennessee when he was the state’s Economic and Community Development Department commissioner.

“The administration and some leadership saw that this was a benefit to the state of Tennessee whether it had a union or not,” Hakeem said.

Chattanooga would not be the first auto plant unionized in Tennessee. The UAW already represents workers at the General Motors plant in Spring Hill.