VW Chattanooga Workers File Against UAW Recount

As a former member of two different unions, and shop steward at one, I can relate that membership in a union will not solve their problems, get them bigger raises or more benefits. It will protect the lazy, allow the worst workers to remain employed, and punish the industrious. I have been personally threatened for doing more than my job required and encouraged to sit down and not make waves when I questioned our leadership. The fact that a large part of their union dues would go to a political party that many in the south detest was probably enough to sink the vote. The other fact is that the UAW (or any other union) does not really have much to offer its members. With the alphabet soup of government agencies to protect workers (OSHA, EEOC, Wage Division, and many others)the union claiming that they can offer to be more than a political arm is laughable. As for the Senators comments, President Obama also felt the need to weigh in so the political maneuvering cuts both ways.

I'm going to check out of this conversation. The insults are getting pretty thick on this site, where there used to be much more civility. I still insist that telling people you won't support unearned subsidies to their employer anymore, or that you heard that their employer may not expand their plant and hire more people in their community is no real threat that should make someone change their vote out of fear. Had someone threatened to use the power of the state to harass the company or the employees, that would be wrong. That did not happen. I'm not sure if there is something basically different with the liberal mindset that keeps this difference from registering, or if it's partisanship, or that anything anti union is going to get attacked without any fear of hypocrisy. Two wrongs don't make a right, but how you guys go after these "threats" while, I suspect, defending the administration in the recent IRA scandal is beyond me. More to the point, how you weigh VW management versus the UAW and think the workers somehow have power parity with the UAW is strange. The only little guys in this story are the workers. The UAW flacks are plenty powerful and need no special consideration.

> The only little guys in this story are the workers. Yes, it's really as simple as their self-interest, which obviously isn't to accept the first offer as relatively weak individual negotiators. Too bad people (incl ironically some of same dumb workers) are more than willing to kick that to the curb because Obama terrorists UAW.

ARGLHEHARGLEBARGLE!! Okay, I'm very.. Very confused now. I've not been following this very closely in the general media but just reading through the bits that come-up on TTAC out of curiosity, so I may be missing a whole lot. So, Senator Crocker or whatever he's called said something to the effect that if the plant voted pro-UAW then future state subsidies might 'go-away'. People are really really upset by this, saying that this represented an unfair influence on the vote. ...how? Do people think the comments were directed at VW management, or VW workers? Would VW management cave and employ skeevy pressure onto their workers to influence their vote? Would Tennessee blue-collar workers really give a damn what some politician had to say? What about all the stories about VW management doing everything they could to accommodate the UAW? Allowing the UAW special access privileges to the plant and it's workforce while the anti-union types were left with buying billboards and ad-time to try and get their message across? UAW must have some really crap representatives if personal face-time with workers can't counteract a billboard. And is it Really that unbelievable that workers decide on their own not to take-on UAW representation without outside pressure?