VW’s Labor Chief Threatens to Block New Investment in the South

Bernd Osterloh, a Volkswagen AG board member and the company's top labor representative, says he may try to thwart any new investment in America's southern states after workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., rejected the United Auto Workers union.

Osterloh tells Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung the "no" vote makes it less likely that VW's works council would approve another big factory in the South.

VW's facilities in Europe are governed by the concept of co-determination, in which management and labor work together to make decisions about opening, closing and operating factories. Osterloh wants to set up a similar works council at Chattanooga. U.S. labor laws would allow it, but only if workers are represented by an independent union.

Anti-union politicians in Tennessee raised the specter of Detroit-style economic malaise if the Chattanooga plant was organized by the UAW. Republican Sen. Bob Corker said during the vote that VW would award a second vehicle program to the facility. Osterloh describes such tactics as interference bordering on unfair labor practices.