UAW Strikes Back: "Local 42" Now In Tennessee VW Plant - May Be Future Of Labor – From Daily Kos

The Supreme Court has finally stacked the deck enough that the 20th century paradigm of union organizing can no longer succeed.  To survive the labor movement must change its tactics and turn recent labor rulings to its advantage.  In Tennessee, the UAW appears to be doing just that and today there is a union local, Local 42 representing the workers in the Volkswagen Plant at Chattanooga, TN.
 

Instead of calling on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to administer an election, the UAW has decided to form a voluntary association called Local 42. At least initially, the group will not collectively bargain on behalf of the plant’s whole workforce, and it will not collect dues. Yet if a majority of the plant’s employees agree to join Local 42, there is a chance that Volkswagen will recognize it as the workers’ exclusive bargaining agent, granting it full union privileges without the need for an election.

A "Voluntary Local" may be the entrée into thousands of large non-union plants and industries though out the country.  This is especially true in Republican "Right to Work" states were many companies who would prefer a union model are actively discouraged by conservatives who don't want any virulent strains of prosperity to run amok in the labor class.  Volkswagen is an ideal test for this guerrilla tactic.  The plant's workers are well aware that they were duped before recent union elections into believing VW would pull back future work if the unionization was successful.  After the vote VW made obvious the lies mouthed by Sen. Bob Corker (R) and others.  VW went so far as to say that VW would look to states with more favorable union climates for future expansions.  VW clearly wants an organized labor presence to work with both for common negotiations and for workplace safety and efficiency issues.  That labor/management partnership is a hallmark of the world’s largest auto maker.

It is clear that the activist judiciary entrenched by GW Bush has a passionate hard-on for unions.  It may have to do with the political power they used to have (very past tense) and the lobbying leverage they are losing every day.

It certainly has to do with unshackling the "invisible hand of the market" by giving workers the "right to work" at the total will of the employers with no organized protections or negotiations.   This assault on labor that began with Ronald Reagan’s firing of the entire PATCO union force in 1981 has since seen practically no real income growth for the American working class while productivity has risen by roughly 65%.  

 The Anti-Unionists have used the automatic assessment of union fees from entire classes of affiliated workers as their primary axe to chop at collective bargaining.  Partially unionizing companies was much more of the norm in the early years of the labor movement and enforced dues are now a legal hazard.  The UAW and the SEIU have to pivot to a more flexible stance that can put a union presence into a sector and then let the sector come to it.  The success of one "voluntary" union local in one VW plant can put both pressure and incentive on others to follow.