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UAW, Volkswagen Agree to Discuss Tenn. Plant Labor Rift

The United Auto Workers union will meet later this month with Volkswagen AG representatives in Germany in hopes of resolving their labor dispute over workers at VW’s assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.
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The United Auto Workers union will meet later this month with Volkswagen AG representatives in Germany in hopes of resolving their labor dispute over workers at VW’s assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The UAW failed to win a vote in early 2014 to organize the factory’s hourly workforce. But late last year the facility’s 160 skilled trades workers agreed to be represented by the union. The vote was upheld by the National Labor Relations Board, but VW so far has refused to recognize the the UAW group.

VW doesn’t object to a unionized workforce. But it contends that negotiating with a union-represented group that accounts for only about 1% of the plant’s hourly workforce will create disruption. The company has suggested that the UAW hold another all-plant vote.

“We can accept a vote of the entire workforce, but we cannot accept fragmentation,” asserts Karlheinz Blessing, the VW board member in charge of the company’s human resources department.

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