Bob King To VW: No Works Council Until Chattanooga Workers Get Representation

by Derek Kreindler

Published: April 3rd, 2013

bob king to vw no works council until chattanooga workers get representation

No works council without representation. Those are the words of UAW President Bob King, in an interview with Autoline Detroit, when asked about a possible works council at VW’s Chattanooga assembly plant.

The Detroit Free Pres s quotes King as stating

“In the U.S., you can’t do a works council without the workers being in a union,” King said during the Autoline interview. “So if those workers want to have a works council in Chattanooga … then they would first become UAW members and then would bargain in a works council system.”

The full interview is scheduled to air on May 10. TTAC has previously covered the idea of a works council, and the interplay between the UAW and German union IG Metall.Feel free to brush up, because this is something we’ll be hearing a lot more about in the coming months.

#BobKing #IGMetall #Uaw #Volkswagen #VolkswagenChattanooga

Derek Kreindler

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9 of 61 comments

Billfrombuckhead on Apr 03, 2013

Ford was worse manged and less productive then GM and Chrysler and got into trouble before GM and Chrysler so was able to mortgage the company on Wall Street. GM and Chrysler din't have that option because of the banking collapse. Let's not rewrite history for political "truthiness"

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- Tresmonos on Apr 03, 2013
  
  Less cash was the key. Ford had a ton of plants that were underutilized that no one had the guts to consolidate. The process had been initiated when Mulally stepped in, but it wasn't executed quickly until he took the reins.
  
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- Geeber on Apr 04, 2013
  
  See my response to your similar post above. The idea that GM and Chrysler didn't have that option is false. GM was offered a similar package from financial institutions at the same time Ford arranged its financing. Rick Wagoner turned the banks down, because his latest, super-dooper recovery plan was sure to succeed where GM's previous 20 or so other, basically similar, super-dooper recovery plans over the past three decades had failed. Oops...
  
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- Ect on Apr 04, 2013
  
  @geeber GM's financial position was much worse than Ford's. Like Ford, they had mortgaged close to everything. They just did it bit by bit over several years, rather than in a big package the way Ford did it. GM's long market share slide left the company with huge legacy costs, far beyond that of Ford and Chrysler. At the beginning of 2008, it had a deficit in shareholders' equity of $38 billion, and $25 billion of cash and equivalents. Ford had positive shareholders' equity ($5.6 billion) and $35 billion in cash and equivalents. In 2007 alone, GM lost $38.7 billion. Ford lost a "mere" $2.7 billion. By the end of 2007 (well before he banking crisis of September 2008), nothing could save GM from bankruptcy. Nothing.
  
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TW4 on Apr 03, 2013

Mankind cannot resist the forbidden fruit of modern union representation. The workers in Tennessee are no different than those in Michigan. As surely as the sun will set, Chattanooga will eventually succumb to the UAW. Let Bob Zombie feast on the brains of the weak. The will only suffer if you give them false hope.

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Johnny ringo on Apr 03, 2013

My guess is that at VW headquarters in Germany there is a fierce power struggle going on between forces who want to build automobiles in the United States and those who oppose that idea. The forces opposing manufacturing in the U.S. have come up with a way to sabotage it: Let the UAW represent the workers at the Chattanooga plant.

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- Highdesertcat on Apr 03, 2013
  
  Actually, it may be a smart move because the UAW drove their employers into the financial grave and the US government bailed them out. If the UAW did the same for VW in America, it is reasonable that the US government would bail them out as well, especially with the political climate in America forecast to be heavily ultra-left socialist-welfare liberal-Democrat for the new 12-16 years. I kid you not! With the GOP in disarray there's nothing to stop the dems. BTW, I'm an Independent - I vote for the best candidate regardless of political party, so don't presume to associate or affiliate me with ANY political ideology.
  
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Rod Panhard on Apr 04, 2013

When I look at that photo of VW's workers in Tennessee, it appears that the food in the company cafeteria must be pretty good!

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- Summicron on Apr 04, 2013
  
  Except for the guy front row far left, they seem remarkably healthy for *any* union's rank & file. Maybe even healthy enough to fight off the UAW.
  
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