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George Walker IV

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., passed a historic vote to join the United Auto Workers on Friday, making the auto factory the first in the South to vote to unionize since the 1940s.

Nearly three-quarters of 3,613 workers voted yes in a three-day election that drew high turnout, giving the union an impressive first win in its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/29/uaw-toyota-tesla-organize/" target=_blank>campaign</a> to organize the factories of a dozen automakers in the South.

The vote marks the biggest organizing victory in years for the UAW and for the broader labor movement, which has long faced difficulty in Southern states. The UAW had twice previously failed to unionize the VW plant, in 2014 and 2019. VW Chattanooga will join a handful of other unionized auto factories in the South, where local laws and customs have made it hard for unions to make inroads.

The organizing effort caps off a strong year for the U.S. labor movement, which has won record wage increases in several industries through strikes and tough bargaining. The Teamsters scored big wins for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/25/ups-strike-deal-teamsters/" target=_blank>UPS employees</a>, while Hollywood actors and writers, and Kaiser nurses secured better wages and working conditions by staging walkouts. The UAW has had a particularly strong year under its new president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/united-auto-workers-strike-vote-deadline/" target=_blank>Shawn Fain</a>, winning large raises and other perks through an acrimonious strike against Detroit automakers in the fall.

The Chattanooga vote marks a political victory for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a>. He and former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> have been courting autoworkers in the upcoming presidential election, but with very different approaches. Trump has criticized the UAW’s leadership, while Biden won the UAW’s endorsement earlier this year, appeared at picket lines and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/26/biden-uaw-picket-line/" target=_blank>supported</a> union expansion efforts.

“Congratulations to the workers at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on their historic vote for union representation with the United Auto Workers,” Biden said in a statement late Friday night. “I was proud to stand alongside auto workers in their successful fight for record contracts, and I am proud to stand with auto workers now as they successfully organize at Volkswagen.”

Factory employees celebrated their overwhelming victory at a union hall in Chattanooga, setting off fireworks and erupting in cheers.

“I’m very proud of the work we did to get here,” Volkswagen worker Robert Soderstrom said by text message. “We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, and I’m eager to get it started.”

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/united-auto-workers-strike-vote-deadline/" target=_blank>Fain</a>, who has revitalized the union since his election to the job about a year ago, joined workers at the hall and vowed to continue the momentum.

“We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else!” he said, referring to the next election on the union’s calendar, at Mercedes-Benz facilities in Alabama.

In a brief statement, Volkswagen thanked its workers for voting in the election. All of the company’s other factories worldwide are already represented by a union or a similar body that advocates for workers.

The union’s victory came after a concerted campaign by local Volkswagen workers, assisted by UAW staff, who rallied workers to their cause by pledging that the union would help them fight for better health care and retirement benefits and more paid time off.

Fain told workers Friday that a tougher fight awaits them as they prepare to negotiate with Volkswagen for their first contract. Among their goals: more paid time off and better control over their schedules. Workers say they also want better health care and retirement benefits.

Hourly wages for production workers at the plant range from $23.40 to $32.40, according to Volkswagen. After their strike last year against the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — UAW workers at those companies won raises that boosted wages for the highest-paid employees to more than $40 an hour.

Like Volkswagen, the UAW’s other new targets are mostly foreign-headquartered companies that manufacture in the South, including Honda, Toyota and Hyundai. Tesla factories in Texas, Nevada and California are also on the union’s list.

One employee of an Alabama plant for Hyundai took heart from the Volkswagen vote. The Chattanooga result will make it “easier to get my co-workers off the fence” about joining the union, said Quichelle Liggins, who has worked at Hyundai’s Montgomery factory for 13 years.

“This vote [at VW] is more motivation and fuel to pump into my people that this is our neighbor a couple hundred miles up the road,” Liggins said. “If it can happen that close to home just imagine what we could achieve in Alabama.”

The UAW says a majority of workers at Mercedes-Benz manufacturing facilities in Vance and Woodstock, Ala., have already signed union authorization cards supporting membership in the UAW, which workers will put to a vote in mid-May. That election, combined with the results of the Volkswagen vote, could have far-reaching consequences for the labor movement in the region, said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University who has studied the UAW’s efforts in Southern states.

“If the UAW can prevail, it means that the Volkswagen victory isn’t an anomaly and we’re really seeing a turnaround in attitudes in workers in the South,” Silvia said.

In recent weeks, the UAW has filed unfair labor practice charges against Mercedes alleging that the automaker illegally fired union activists, disciplined workers for discussing the union at work and prohibited the circulation of union literature.

Mercedes has rejected the accusations and said it respects its workers’ right to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board is investigating those charges.

Harry Katz, a professor and labor expert at Cornell University, called the Volkswagen vote and the 84 percent turnout particularly impressive, and potentially motivated by the big raises and other perks UAW workers won last year by striking against the Big Three.

“At the same time, it should be recognized that VW may prove to be a special case given that VW management did not aggressively seek to avoid unionization,” Katz added. Workers at other factories on the UAW’s list “will likely face the kind of resistance that has made it difficult for unions to organize over the last 30 years in the auto sector and elsewhere in the private sector in the U.S.”

Another problem facing the UAW is that unionization at auto-parts suppliers in the United States has dropped to “extremely low levels,” he added. Parts suppliers not owned by the Big Three were 95 percent unionized in 1950 versus only about 5 percent today, Katz said.

Republican politicians in Tennessee had sought to thwart a “yes” vote by warning workers in public statements that unionization would threaten jobs and the region’s economic prosperity. Governors of six Southern states banded together to make a similar<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/04/16/republican-governors-uaw/" target=_blank> joint statement </a>this week.

Kevin Wurm

In his statement Friday, Biden criticized those governors for “falsely claiming that a successful vote would jeopardize jobs.”

“There is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose,” Biden said.

Since its founding in the 1930s, the UAW has had a strong presence at the Midwestern factories of the Big Three automakers. Its nationwide agreements with those companies have also allowed the union to expand into a handful of large factories in Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee.

But the union’s membership has dropped precipitously over the past few decades, leaving the UAW scrambling for new sources of growth.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions, called the Volkswagen vote “a historic milestone for workers across the state and the broader South.”

Local “right to work” laws in Southern states, as well as political and cultural traditions, have made it difficult for unions to expand. That could change if the UAW’s momentum continues in the region, Rutgers University labor professor Rebecca Givan said.

“There will be an opportunity to raise standards across the South,” Givan said. “Other employers will not be able to compete for workers in a tight labor market if they don’t keep up. We’ll likely see organizing in manufacturing and areas where there already have been campaigns — everything from Starbucks to hospitals.”

Some experts say workers’ attitudes are changing as younger people enter the workforce.

Petitions for union elections are up 35 percent in fiscal 2024 compared with the previous year, the NLRB announced earlier this month. And American support for unions has soared to 67 percent, after hitting a record low during the Great Recession, according to Gallup polling.

The labor movement still faces an uphill climb. Last year, only 10 percent of U.S. workers were in a union, a record low, in part due to the explosive growth of the nation’s workforce. Meanwhile, a wave of high-profile victories at previously nonunion companies, such as Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and REI, have yet to achieve first union contracts for workers.

Finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize as part of a WSJ team

National Institute for Health Care Management print award, 2017

Association of Health Care Journalists first-place award, 2015

Newswomen's Club of New York award, 2017

Cornell University, BA in English

Jeanne Whalen is a reporter covering business around the world. She previously reported for the Wall Street Journal from New York, London and Moscow. 

Jeanne Whalen

Newswomen’s Club of New York's Best New Journalist Award, 2021

Sidney Hillman Foundation's Sidney Award, 2021

University of Chicago, BA in Comparative Literature

New York University, MA in Journalism and Latin American Studies

Lauren Kaori Gurley is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. She previously covered labor and tech for Vice's Motherboard. 

Lauren Kaori Gurley

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