Posted on 02/19/2014 5:29:01 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Bernd Osterloh, who is the Volkswagen AG General and Group Works Council chairman, said that future investments in the South might be hurt if workers will not unionize, according to Reuters.
The comments come days after Volkswagen Chattanooga workers voted against representation by the United Auto Workers Union.
After years of quiet work by union leaders and a contentious campaigning period, officials announced Friday night that Volkswagen employees opted against UAW representation with a 712-626 vote.
But at that announcement, Volkswagen Chattanooga President Frank Fischer said the vote wasn't against the works council and that there is still support for that idea.
Osterloh said that, if co-determination isn't guaranteed, it would be more difficult to vote in favor of building another auto plant in the South.
"I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the South again," Osterloh said, according to Reuters.
The works council is a 20-member group that has an even division of labor and management representatives. They have to approve decisions about where to locate new plants.
Osterloh's comments have been the target of criticism in the past.
In the fall, Osterloh said that having a works council is important to producing a second vehicle in Chattanooga.
"We know how important that vehicle is for Chattanooga," Osterloh said, according to Reuters.
With help from the National Right to Work Legal Foundation, some VW employees filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Volkswagen America, in part because of that statement.
Some workers and lawyers thought the comments constituted coercion.
NLRB officials have since recommended dismissal of those charges, but not because his statement didn't qualify as coercive. Instead, the NLRB decision said that Osterloh isn't bound by U.S. law because he's in Germany.
After those comments that seemed to tie the union vote to local VW expansion, Osterloh also said there was no connection between the union vote and expansion in Chattanooga.
Some Volkswagen AG leaders, such as Osterloh, want Chattanooga’s plant to be a part of its works council system. It’s currently one of the only plants out of about 100 around the world that operates outside that system.
Because the National Labor Relations Act forbids companies to have an internal union, organizing the local plant can’t be done exactly like the German model.
Volkswagen AG leaders want a works council because it would allow them to stay in touch with ideas and thoughts from Chattanooga workers and come to future deals about working conditions, Horst Neumann, VW's board member for human resources, said, according to Automotive News.
In his most recent comments, Osterloh said that conservatives might be to blame for anti-union feelings.
Sen. Bob Corker and other Republicans campaigned against the UAW efforts, saying that it would hurt the state's ability to attract auto suppliers. They argued that the UAW has a bad reputation, in part because of its ties to the Detroit auto industry.
"The conservatives stirred up massive, anti-union sentiments," Osterloh said, according to Reuters. "It's possible that the conclusion will be drawn that this interference amounted to unfair labor praxis."
Despite last week's vote against UAW representation, some Volkswagen leaders still want Chattanooga workers to be part of the Global Works Council.
But it's still unclear exactly how that would work.
And Gunnar Kilian, secretary-general of VW's works council, told Reuters and The New York Times that he plans to come to the United States within the next two weeks to consult labor law experts and figure out the next steps toward reaching his goal.
Meanwhile, state and local leaders are in talks with VW in hopes of getting a new vehicle made in Chattanooga.
If you thought that the UAW could be ugly against non-union companies, just think what they would do against an independent union. Imagine trying to set up your own crime organization inside Mafia territory. Now multiply that by ten and add the force of the feral government.
I don’t have to imagine. The UAW picketed my shop when we formed our independent union.
Indeed - if VW loves unions and their political hacks so much, they could have opened their plant in New York.
My guess is this VW manager is just issuing a meaningless statement after-the-fact for PR consumption back home.
Yes but the union people assemble the car.
VW can solve that issue by moving north. Easy fix for VW’s desire for unions.
LOL, then head to a blue state where they tax you out of everything.
All their cars suck big time and everyone knew even back in HS that only fags drive Jetta’s.
People who live with the fantasy of union free cars are fooling themselves anyway. I doubt there is a factory built car on the planet that doesn’t contain a lot of union made parts.
The last union shop I worked in had Cadillac and F150 parts as our primary jobs but we also made Jeep, Toyota, and even Mercedes parts. The Merc ashtray lids were made elsewhere and we just painted them to the pickiest standards I ever saw.
I've never seen union quality control...Wouldn't seem union QC would be in the best interest of the Company...
You don't need a labor union for that, you only need representation on the council from the labor force at the plant.
They likely have a company Quality control supervisor or even a department but the people on the floor doing the work checking every part are union. The company guys wander out of the A/C a couple times per day and grab a few parts.
Sounds communist to me.
Busy little Dumkopf isn’he? Sounds more like a union’s “commiezar” than anything else.
You just can not be serious.
Quality is about a whole lot more than finding the rejected parts at the end of the process.
Are you saying that the people in the south have no desire to work as a team with their employers in order to produce a quality product?
That is against federal law. Read the article.
No. Pointing out if VW wants union involvement, they will have to move the
plant up north where’s the unions are the strongest.
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