Good explanation here about VW and it’s socialist “Works Councils”.
Posted by Editor on November 20, 2013 at 5:20 pm
A Lesson In U.S. Labor Law & How The UAW Is Lying Its Way Into The South With VW’s Help
The UAW doesn’t want U.S. workers to know they don’t need the UAW in order to have representation on VW’s Works Council–they can do it themselves.
Notwithstanding the fact that the next boss of Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, just seemingly compared the U.S. South to North Korea, and after chasing companies out of the North and Midwest, unions have long had their sights set on getting their grip on the Southern States–and the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee may be where they hope the fall of the South begins.
The United Auto Workers, Volkswagen and its union, IGMetall, are misleading the VW employees in Tennessee about U.S. labor law and it’s about time the employees there learned the truth:
Under U.S. labor law, workers have the right to represent themselves–individually or collectively–without having a union like the UAW.
Unions’ Misrepresentation About Representation
Over the last several months, misinformation has been put out in the press by a lot of people about U.S. labor law.
The common belief, as stated by (primarily) union advocates and echoed by Volkswagen is that the only way Volkswagen’s employees in Chattanooga can have representation on its Works Council is through a trade union.
It was stated again on Tuesday in the USAToday:
Labor representatives, who make up half of the Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker’s supervisory board, have pressured VW management to enter discussions about union representation at the Chattanooga plant because U.S. law requires that any works council be created through an established union.
In Germany, wages are bargained through the union, while works councils negotiate plant-specific matters such as job security and working conditions for all employees.
“It’s important to note that the issue for us is works councils, not unions,” Osterloh* said. “And your law says if I want to transfer authority to a works council, I need to work with a union.” [Emphasis added.]
[*Bernd Osterloh is the head of the Volkswagen’s global works councils and a member of the company’s supervisory board.]
The problem with this statement is: It is not true.
Of course, the UAW won’t tell employees that it is not true because it is not in the union’s interests to have VW workers (or the company, apparently) to know that U.S. labor law does allow employees to have representation without a formal union–as long as management has not create and does not control that representative.
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