How the UAW is winning over new plants -- starting with Volkswagen

“When we started this campaign, you didn’t talk very openly in the plant about a union,” said Meadows. “Now it’s all we talk about.”

UAW’s recent contract wins for around 150,000 workers at Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Sellantis NV have been a major selling point. “I want my life to be more like their life,” said VW employee Chris Brown.

Kelcey Smith decided to join the organizing committee at the Tennessee plant after the Big Three strike. “It's like, ‘Well, hey, they’re doing the same thing that I’m doing, and they got major changes,” the VW worker said.

Earlier this month, around 100 VW employees and other union supporters gathered at a local union hall to hear from Ford workers and union reps about what it’s like to win and enforce a contract. VW workers picked up UAW shirts, wristbands, water bottles and temporary tattoos to don on the job.

Chuck Browning, the UAW’s international vice president, fielded dozens of questions about the mechanics of collective bargaining. At one point, he pantomimed the moment in the Detroit talks when Fain threw Stellantis’ contract proposal in the garbage during a livestream — a bold move Browning acknowledged he’d initially found “crazy as shit,” but that ultimately worked.

“Things will be transparent,” he said. “Things will be driven by you.”

The UAW’s success in Detroit last fall is having a similar effect at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama — also the site of past failed union efforts.

Last November, a group of workers there led by Jeremy Kimbrell met with the UAW’s organizing director, Brian Shepherd, to discuss what would set a new campaign apart from past ones. This one, Shepherd told them, would be “worker-led.” After discussing amongst themselves whether to move forward, the employees started distributing union cards within a few days, Kimbrell said. The UAW submitted a petition April 5 asking the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election at the plant.

If the UAW does prevail this week at VW, it’ll boost the union’s efforts not just at Mercedes but other automakers, said Wilma Liebman, who chaired the NLRB under President Barack Obama and did legal work for the UAW on prior efforts at Volkswagen. “Winning is always contagious,” she said. “It’ll show it can be done even in the US South. It is potentially enormous.”

A more pro-union political and cultural climate in the US is also helping the UAW’s cause. Public approval for union membership is up from recession-era lows. The past few years have brought a series of high-profile organizing victories at previously union-free companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Starbucks. More established unions have successfully negotiated record-breaking wage hikes for members in the last year. President Joe Biden has also allied himself with the UAW, making history by joining a picket line and tying federal funds for the green energy transition to labor practices.

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