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Building Trades Backs Local Hire Drive for Tennessee VW Plant
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Volkswagen is building a $1 billion auto plant near Chattanooga, Tenn., after being lured there with a $565 million incentive package of taxpayer money. But, according to grassroots group “Volunteers for Local Hire,” many of the jobs building the facility are going to out-of-state and even out-of-country workers.
Last weekend, the group, along with members of unions from the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), held protests at 35 VW dealerships in 19 states, in support of the Tennessee group’s drive to win a “local hire” agreement with VW to ensure state contractors and workers have a fair share of the new work.
BCTD President Mark H. Ayers says protests are “not a union vs. non-union issue,” but that the broad support for the Tennessee workers shows people are “getting fed up with seeing their own tax dollars squandered on corporate welfare that doesn’t benefit them.”
And they are sick and tired of watching foreign corporations—who have long-standing, formal policies regarding respect for workers and communities in their home countries—come to the United States and abandon those principles to take advantage of a continuing “race to the bottom” business mentality that inflicts so much economic and social damage on American workers and American communities.
For more on the VW plant and to sign a petition supporting a local hire agreement, click here.
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5 Comments
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Voltswagon should have the plant made by union workers for their own sake as well as that of the workers. Union workers have mandatory training and qualifications, unlike scabs.
But I’m never buying a Voltswagon anyway. I don’t know if the autos actually produced in Germany are union made, but the only VW produced in North America by union workers is the Routan minivan (final assembled) in Windsor, OT Canada by the CAW. The same place are Dodge Caravan sport was produced, so it might even be the same van (platform or whatever,) same engine with VW logo on it.
Im was really upset to read an article by a former UAW assembly line worker at the Caddilac Fleetwood plant in Detroit, he wrote that, back when the only foriegn auto “transplant” (I have other words for it) was th Honda works in Maryville, OH we had a chance to organise it, the company openly stated they were not hostile to the idea, but the organiser was in the Korean war and had a racist paranoia against them, leading to a breakdown in contract talks, there would be far fewer problems today if it wasn’t for that moron.
Sorry Citizen4 but Unions have no place in today’s economy, they only strangle a company’s resources and restrict their flexibility to compete in the market. Yes, the VW van is manufactured by Chrysler, no secret as the engine has Chrysler badges all over. No different than Mazda making Fords and the list goes on. Why would foreign manufacturers CHOOSE to be held hostage by unions of the traditional north when they can locate in the south and run their companies the way the choose? The main reason GM had to become an Obama child is due to the legacy costs primarily created by union members. I can see no reasonable justified answer for why a union should stand between an employee and a company, the employee can always choose to leave just as they chose to put their application in.
I didn’t say I had a problem with VW vans being Chrysler made. In fact when I can actually afford a newer car, I will likely from Chrysler because many of their cars are made in Michigan, they actually have plants in Detroit proper and there cars are 77% domestic content or more, made in the North by union workers who aren’t fired just before meager retirement benifits, after working 30 years for a company, or treated like crap when they get an injury.
http://www.ourfuture.org/autopledge
Non-Union can’t make a logical case. It is typical of someone who is intellecually bankrupt. He chooses to use a political framework rather that make a case on the facts. I have never have a problem with a person working non-union as circumstances dictate. However, an antiunion case cannot be made on the facts. From a standpoint of economics, everyone benefits when we have family wages jobs, healthfcare that is affordable and pensions for those who were productive members of society. If non-union companies can do that, then so be it.
Thank you allanbdarr. And that’s pretty much the way I see it. The only equal or better situation to a union workplace is a co-op. They’re discussing the successes of co-ops on Heartland Labor Forum today.
And I forgot to mention any and all of the problems that GM has ever had was caused strictly by the moron previous shareholders/managment NOT by the employees who have a vested intrest in seeing the company remain successful and not their mutual funds.
Oh, and by the way, I am not a union member yet nor is anyone in my family, so the idea that you have to be a union member to want to buy union products or support union causes…out the window.