CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee - after decades to automakers cold shoulder in the South, the United Auto Workers Union is courted new entrant in the region, Volkswagen.
Director of the southern region UAW Gary Casteel said Associated Press that Wolfsburg, automobile manufacturer based in Germany has always had a labor organized around the world and making frames and employees at the new assembly plant in Chattanooga "more likely to talk to the unions of representation".
Volkswagen began sending Passat 2012 dealers of test disks and screens until the cars built by approximately 1 900 employees of the $ 1 billion plant are on sale at the end of September.
Casteel said the UAW took some VW workers in Chattanooga soft hand to them and there have been discussions with VW executives.
"Any decision on the representation belongs to only employees," Volkswagen said in a statement.
Casteel said that no official organizing effort began.
"We have dialogue with them," said Casteel.
He has said that VW, Asians and some other European manufacturers, applicants who have worked in union jobs.
"One of the fundamental values of Volkswagen is the fundamental right of employees to have a voice in society," Chattanooga VW spokesman Guenther Scherelis said in statement the automaker Friday. "We value the diversity of the experience of our employees and welcome applicants from all walks of life.". We ignore or follow past the Union affiliation at all in our selection process. »
Volkswagen operated an assembly plant in new Stanton, PA., with the Workers Union which closed in 1988 after disappointing sales.
Scherelis declined to speculate on any possible future relationship with the UAW or any other third party but said in the statement that Volkswagen is "open for communication with the groups of different backgrounds."
Casteel said that the UAW had never been successful in trying to organize an auto assembly plant in the South. He was union locals in automotive plants and many other industries in the region. But it was repeatedly voted down by the employees of Nissan, which in 1973 began production as the first Japanese automaker in the South.
The UAW several months ago, made an unsuccessful attempt to launch an organizing effort at the plant of Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, but found no enthusiasm in individual contacts with workers in their home. Hyundai Montgomery Robert Burns spokesman acknowledged the union attempted to home visits, but refused to elaborate.
"The problem is that there is so much intimidation and fear there," said Casteel. Who is ready to deal with bullying? It is the key to it. "He told some auto plants, workers are now be paid as little as $12 an hour.
Mike Goss, a spokesman for Toyota in Erlanger, KY, said that Toyota was "the UAW 25 years radar screen." We know that we are on their radar screen. "We don't see any unusual activity and as always he belongs to the members of our team or not they need of representation".
In a filing to the U.S. Department of Labor 2010, the UAW said there 376,612 members. Up to 6% of 2009 and the first time since 2004, it is the union added members.
"The ideal scenario is to have a company agree to a fair election", said Casteel. "Let the workers to decide on an agreement for the company, where workers are represented and the company continues to operate." It is not to be a struggle. It may be the workers involved in the success of the business. It is the relationship that we work for. »
He said that the UAW later this summer plans to start a global organizing effort aimed at a car manufacturer, probably with a plant in the South. He refused to say what automobile manufacturer may be the target but predicted that it will not be Volkswagen.
"We look at as a model for what should be undertaken automobiles," said Casteel.
Mike Randle, editor in Chief and Publisher southern companies and development, a publication based in Birmingham, Alabama, said of auto workers is no longer needed Union representation.
He said automotive assembly plants generally begin workers to $15 an hour.
"What is the point?" Organization is a model of the 1950s, 60, 70, said Randle. "It is obsolete." They (workers of the car) are already paid more than someone else.
"We have people who do not have a degree and the manufacture of 50 000 $ to $ 75,000 a year working in a car manufacturing plant," he said. "What do you need a Union for?".
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