Volkswagen's top human resources official in Germany plans to meet with the United Auto Workers' secretary-treasurer this month over the labor impasse at the Chattanooga plant.
Karlheinz Blessing, VW's board member in charge of human resources companywide, and Gary Casteel, the UAW official overseeing the union's Southern organizing efforts, are to meet to try to settle the dispute that the automaker said it plans to take to federal appeals court to sort out.
Chattanooga VW workers assemble Volkswagen Passat sedans at the German automaker's plant in this June 12, 2013, photo. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig)
Gary Casteel, secretary-treasurer of the United Auto Workers, speaks during a news conference Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015, in Spring Hill, Tenn. The United Auto Workers and German trade union IG Metall will open a joint office to promote unionization among manufacturers and suppliers in the South. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)"The UAW would like to re-establish a trusting relationship with Volkswagen," Casteel said in a statement Monday.
Casteel said the UAW remains "optimistic that we can soon have a constructive relationship with the company for the benefit of the employees in Chattanooga who want and need representation."
However, Blessing told The Wall Street Journal in Germany that VW officials "have made an offer to talk. We can accept a vote of the entire workforce, but we cannot accept fragmentation."
VW has said that while it respects the right of employees to decide the question of union representation, it would appeal to federal court a National Labor Relations Board decision last month upholding an election at the plant in December 2015. By a 108-44 vote, skilled trades workers agreed to align with the UAW.
VW said that all production workers should be included in a vote.
The NLRB also last week filed an unfair labor relations complaint against the carmaker after the UAW charged that VW refused to bargain with it at the plant after the election.
Casteel said the UAW rejects the notion that bargaining with the skilled-trades employees would result in a fragmentation of the Chattanooga workforce.
"Volkswagen plants all over the world - including in countries such as Italy, Russia and Spain - recognize multiple unions that represent portions of a workforce," he said. "And Volkswagen's own policy for engaging employees in Chattanooga encourages the development of multiple representation groups. So the company's current argument against the National Labor Relations Board rings hollow."
The UAW lost a vote of the full production workforce in February 2014 by a vote of 712 to 626. After the election, the UAW charged that Republican politicians interfered with the vote and filed a challenge with the NLRB.
But Casteel said that in the spring 2014, the UAW and Volkswagen reached "an agreement." He said the UAW agreed to withdraw its objections to the 2014 "tainted election" and VW would recognize the union as the representative of its members.
"When I meet with Dr. Blessing, I'll present him with the documentation of that agreement, which was signed by his predecessor Dr. [Horst] Neumann," Casteel said.
Meanwhile, a group of anti-UAW workers at the Chattanooga plant, the American Council of Employees, has criticized the UAW.
ACE President David Reed said that "we all knew that the local impact of the Volkswagen diesel [emissions] issue would be made worse by the UAW's ill-timed election and dispute with the company."
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.