United Auto Workers President Bob King's abrupt decision Monday to abandon his effort to overturn his
union's defeat at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant raises the question of how
sincere the whole effort was in the first place. Did he ever really think he
could have somehow reversed his union's rejection by Volkswagen employees? Or
was his complaint to the National Labor Relations Board
just an elaborate attempt to paint the UAW as the victim and save face?
That King withdrew the
complaint before the board could actually hear the case — but after it had
generated two months of news stories repeating UAW’s cries of “no fair!” —
suggest that, yes, it was all just for show.
To be fair to King, he had
to save face. After all, the union had gone into the election with virtually
every advantage possible. Volkswagen was not opposing unionization. In fact, it
was actually helping the UAW out under pressure from its German
union. Company executives had publicly dropped hints that having a union at the
Chattanooga plant would boost the chances that Volkswagen would add a new SUV
line there. Plant managers also did more overt things like force workers to
attend mandatory meetings to hear from union organizers. Anti-union groups were
barred from the plant.....To Read More...
My Take - And after all this they claim the election was "not fair"! Apparently the only fair thing would have been for the union, VW and the NLRB to have the ability to impose membership whether they wanted it or not. We've gone way past dangerous now.
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