UAW’s Shawn Fain Takes His Fight To Tennessee With Upcoming Volkswagen Union Vote

The UAW needs a win down south. Its national membership sunk to 370,239 last year, according to the annual report the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor last week. That’s the lowest it’s been since 2009.

But UAW President Shawn Fain is feeling confident that the union’s rolls will reverse direction when more than 3,000 workers at the Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast ballots on April 17 through 19 about whether to join the UAW. He’s expecting another win to add to the UAW’s unprecedented fall victory in its negotiations with the Big 3 automakers in Detroit—one that grabbed not only the attention of the auto industry but of labor movements across industries.

“I think workers are fed up and they’re ready for change,” Fain says in an interview. “They're ready to have control their lives and control their workplace again, and I think they know that the union is the only way to make that happen. I feel very confident that we'll have an overwhelming majority when they vote. We have an overwhelming majority of signed cards, and I think it's time.”

One of those workers is Yolanda Peoples. She’s been at the plant for 13 years, which means she was there for its failed attempt to unionize in 2019.

That was before Fain won 25% pay raises and other benefits for UAW members at the Detroit Three last fall, and now Peoples and her co-workers want a piece of that action.

“People paid attention to it,” she says. “It opened their eyes to see, ‘Okay, they're getting this, and what makes us any different—why we can't have this as well.’”

Regardless of the results there, Fain says workers at other non-union plants in the U.S., including those not owned by foreign automakers, have approached the UAW.

While not referencing Tesla directly, Fain invokes the name of its CEO. “We've had workers sign cards and several different companies,” he says. “I don't want to get in the weeds on what all is going on, because, you know, companies are vicious, especially the Elon Musks of the world. They could care less about workers having a life.”

A win in Chattanooga would be a first for the UAW, which has tried and failed in every effort to organize workers at U.S. plants owned by foreign automakers. Indeed, this will be the third attempt to win over workers at the VW plant.

Fain’s confidence that the union will prevail this time around is echoed by labor experts, in large part, because of his take-no-prisoners personality and the aggressive tactics he took against the Detroit automakers last fall, including the first-ever simultaneous walk-outs against all three.

“I think they more than have a shot at it. I think at this point, it's theirs to lose,” predicts Harley Shaiken, labor expert and emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in an interview. “The Detroit Three appeared as three deer caught in the headlights. They seemed uncertain which direction to go with during the talks.

“Fain has shown that he is a very innovative leader,” he adds, “a strong leader and able to connect not simply with UAW members, but with workers and the media more generally.”

Marick Masters, professor of business at the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University in Detroit, agrees. “The UAW has the best chance at this point that it has had in decades,” Masters says in an email interview.

Whatever happens in Chattanooga is being closely watched by organizers at other foreign-owned plants in neighboring states hoping to pull together enough signed cards, and ultimately, positive votes, to join the UAW.

One of them is Ronald Terry at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama. The eight-year veteran active in the organizing efforts there points to the big gains won by the UAW for its members at the Detroit Three automakers as added incentive to join the union.

“The Big Three up north kind of opened up our eyes to things that were actually missing,” Terry says in an interview. “We don't have production bonuses for meeting any targets. We don't have performance bonuses, no retirement plan for workers who destroyed their bodies for 20 years. No profit sharing, no written agreement for cost-of-living rate raises. We'll have three personal days out of the entire year. No sick days, just three personal days—things of that nature. It just got to some point of, ‘Hey, we deserve better.’”

About 90 minutes to the northwest, Jeremy Kimbrell, who has worked at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance for 24 years, is also rooting for a successful vote in Tennessee to break the ice as well as resistance to the idea among his co-workers.

“If their campaign is successful and we follow up behind that closely with a vote of our own, I think it'll only encourage workers that are still undecided to take a closer look, and I think it'll make it easier for them to come on board,” says Kimbrell. “But if they choose not to go up at Volkswagen, I don't think that helps us one bit down here.”

Some of the foreign automakers instantly granted pay raises after seeing the gains the UAW won for the Detroit 3 companies. It was a tactic aimed at convincing workers they can enjoy benefits without joining a union.

At the same time, workers like Kimbrell and Terry say their companies have also played hardball to discourage union membership, citing actions ranging from negative information campaigns to firing workers for wearing clothes with pro-union messaging.

The UAW filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board last December against Hyundai, Honda and Volkswagen alleging anti-union actions.

Honda and Hyundai denied the allegations at the time in written statements, with Honda saying it, “encourages our associates to engage and get information on this issue. We have not and would not interfere with our associates’ right to engage in activity supporting or opposing the UAW.”

Hyundai refuted the allegations, countering, “Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama team members may choose to join a union or not as is their legal right, and this has been true since our plant opened in 2005.”

Fain doesn’t mince words. “They're bullies. and I can't stand bullies and the only way to beat a bully is you punch him in the mouth,” he says. “And I believe workers are gonna punch him in the mouth because they're gonna vote for union membership and they're gonna take control their workplaces.”

As for the upcoming vote at Volkswagen, the company has said it will not interfere with it, telling the Associated Press, “We will fully support an NLRB vote so every team member has a chance to vote in privacy in this important decision.”

Of course, despite the best predictions, there’s always the chance the vote could go the other way.

“If the UAW were to lose the election this month at VW, then it would incur a definite setback,” says Masters. “It would have to regroup and analyze why so that it could adapt appropriately. It would not be its first or last defeat in that challenge of organizing 13 nonunion auto companies operating in the U.S.”

At the conclusion of contract talks with General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis last fall, Fain vowed the next round of negotiations in 2028 would expand from the Detroit 3 to perhaps five or eight companies, meaning automakers with non-union workers who voted to join the UAW.

The union generally uses an initial agreement with one company to set the pattern for contracts with the others. That wouldn’t change with an expanded group.

“We're not going to bargain a great contract with the Big Three and say that we're not going to push for that with other companies or bargain a great contract with Volkswagen or somewhere else and say that we don't want the workers to have that,” says Fain. “We're going to set a standard and we expect the auto companies we represent to follow that standard.”

Fain, who plans to be in Chattanooga when Volkswagen workers cast their ballots “just to be there for the workers,” says he’s not sweating the outcome.

“We're gonna win,” he says. “So I'm not really worried about it. But if it didn't happen, we're going to continue building.”

“Workers want justice in this country. They're fed up with being left behind not just in this country, but in this world,” Fain adds. “Knowing the workers down there, speaking with them on multiple occasions, I'm very confident that they're going to vote for union.”

That brings us back to Yolanda Peoples. She knows workers at non-union auto plants across the country will be watching how the vote goes down in Chattanooga, and that’s a big responsibility.

“I believe we’re going to make history,” declares Peoples. “This is going to be an absolute big outcome and it's going to be a domino effect once we do get our union. Yes, all the other non-union plants are most definitely going to have their union as well.”

Read more about Fain’s thoughts on his first year in office, the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the fight for a shorter work week and his own future at the UAW.