Posted on 02/17/2014 1:34:33 PM PST by rightwingerpatriot
In a huge defeat for the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, workers in Tennessee voted 712 to 626 against union representation at a Volkswagen plant. This event may be remembered in the future as one of the final nails in the union coffin. We can only hope so but this news is fantastic, and even better as the UAW had a lot of advantages going into the vote.
First, Volkswagen was in favor of unionization and had already been conducting talks with the UAW. Normally, businesses are hostile to unions as they are a cancerous parasite that will slowly sap and destroy the host business once they invade. However, Volkswagen, being an European entity, was quite used to having unions in the workplace. Another advantage is that the UAW pulled out all the stops. There are no hard estimates, but it's safe to say that the union spent quite a bit of money pushing the pro-union vote.
Luckily for the average worker, the plant in question resides in Tennessee, a Southern state. Southerners are very leery of unions and are normally conservative. They've seen the devastation wreaked upon the Big Three automakers by the UAW and the post-apocalyptic wasteland that Detroit has become. Neither do they want to see their hard-earned money going to liberal causes through forced union dues. My father was a member of a union because he was forced to and it drove him crazy to see his union spend millions every election cycle on candidates that not only stood for everything he was against but was also against the very industry he was working in.
What I find hysterical is the liberal moaning going on as they try to pin their loss on some boogeyman. They've said that outside "economic terrorists" influenced the vote or that some billboards urging workers to vote against the union somehow tipped the scales. I'm sure that the UAW didn't have billboards of their own or other literature (or threats by pro-union goons). The reason why the UAW lost in Tennessee is that the workers know that the union doesn't give a damn about them. Unions are about control and squeezing as much money as they possibly can, even if it forces the company to shut down. The workers at the Tennessee Volkswagen plant are making $19.50 an hour, which is four dollars more than union workers are making in Michigan!
Union membership is on a death spiral as workers have woken up to the scam of organized labor. The UAW was had 1.5 million members, but it is now down to 400,000. Overall, union membership in the private sector is less than 7%. Overall, union membership has dropped from 17.7 million in 1983 to 14.5 million in 2013. While this three million may not seem that much, you have to remember that union membership in the public sector has shot up and now encompasses around 35%. Yep, bloated, inefficient government is the refute of the union worker.
In other union news, there are three cases pending that will have a major impact on unions in that state. In one case, students are suing over the fact that public school teachers get tenure after 18 months on the job. This leads to a preponderance of bad teachers as it's virtually impossible to fire them, and the students are suing, claiming that the practice violates their right to an adequate education. The two other cases involve workers wanting to opt-out of paying for dues that fund political causes that they are against. The SEIU and the California Teachers Association are being sued for their procedures. The plaintiffs want the unions to have to ask for the money instead of having the workers trying to get the money back through a byzantine process designed to keep them from doing so.
Obama said the only people opposing the UAW organizing effort were those who cared more about corporate profits than the workers.
Yet we see that the workers, in a free and fair election, voted down the union.
So, per Obama logic, do the workers care more about corporate profits than their own job benefits????
...negotiate a raise or promotion for yourself, forgetaboutit!!
Unionist are simply part of the collective Borg!
The tears of the UAW are sweeter than honey.
Interesting that the non union auto workers at VW earn more than union workers at other auto plants.
Could it be that, the workers, who knew they already had good pay and benefits, simply decided that they didn’t need a union? They decided they wouldn’t get greatly increased benefits from a union?
The unions will survive via stimulus and slush money. There is a strong connection to the O Care pipeline.
I’ve never understood why the Dems didn’t force through “card check” in place of secret elections when they had control of both branches of Congress in Obama’s first term.
Under card check, this plant would now be union.
It worries me that almost half of them still voted for the Borg.
What worries me more is the UAW isn’t going to just roll over. They’ll be back, and if they can’t win, they’ll just cheat even more until they do.
Crippling defeat? Not according to the news media. It was a real squeaker, only a few votes. Missed a Worker’s Paradise by thaaat much!
And perhaps workers didn’t like the fact that union dues would be taken from their pay. I don’t know how much the union dues would have been, but, if they were satisfied with their pay and benefits already, any amount of union dues would be money they would resent being taken from them.
You had better believe that the Dems are going to force Card Check through now, by hook or by crook. Unions are simply to important a cog in their money laundering machine.
RE: “UAW Union Suffers Crippling Defeat in Tennessee”
53%-47% is a “crippling” defeat?
I think the long term implications are what is described as “crippling”.
If the UAW had won, the journ-0-lists would have had a union-gasm and they were prepared to assault Mercedes Alabama, and a bunch of other plants.
The reality is that if you subtract out all the healthcare workers and govt employees, the UAW is shrinking faster than Obama’s approval rating.
It lost by 86 votes, and 165 employees apparently did not bother to vote.
Something tells me Obama’s NRLB is gonna give ‘em a mulligan.
——I’ve never understood why the Dems didn’t force through “card check” in place of secret elections when they had control of both branches of Congress in Obama’s first term.——
Because even they understood the current SCOTUS who would eventually hear and rule on that issue would forever rip the guts out of that idea....
They were hoping Obama could stack the court first...
Good explanation.
Makes perfect sense.
They won’t give up. They have unlimited funds behind them and the UAW has expanded into none auto industries..like govt.
According to Obastard "logic," the workers acted stupidly and against their own best interests. Look for action from NLRB to set this vote aside.
The UAW wont survive this decade if they dont adapt. They need to be more open to people who oppose gun control, oppose amnesty for illegals and oppose abortion.
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