Tennessee's senior senator Lamar Alexander visited the Chattanooga Times Free Press for a conversation with the newspaper's editorial board. Senator Alexander discussed such topics as solar power and overtime pay issues. Tennessee's two U.S. senators have signed onto a bill to reverse a National Labor Relations Board decision allowing so-called micro-unions, including a United Auto Workers unit at Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant.
But the president of UAW Local 42 at the VW factory said Friday he's "disappointed that Tennessee's senators are trying to strip Tennessee workers of our rights."
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who was formerly Chattanooga's mayor, said the 2011 NLRB decision that permitted micro-unions is "a perfect example of overreach at the federal level."
"As a former businessman, I understand how difficult it can be for employers to create good-paying jobs when the government oversteps, and I'm pleased to join my colleagues in this effort to reverse a disruptive action that fragments the workplace," he said in a statement.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman and a Republican, said the NLRB decision to allow micro-unions "fractures workplaces and makes it harder and more expensive for employers to manage their workplace and do business - all for the sake of boosting organized labor."
Steve Cochran, UAW Local 42 president, said that while the nation "is in crisis over everything from health care to the Russians, Sens. Corker and Alexander are spending their time attacking blue-collar workers in Chattanooga."
"We hope other members of Congress will stand up for hard-working Americans and oppose this attack on workers' rights," he said.
The issue of micro-unions is at the heart of an ongoing dispute at the city's VW plant where skilled trades workers, who fix and maintain equipment, voted 108 to 44 to align with the UAW in December 2015.
The NLRB certified the vote, citing its 2011 decision in the case of Specialty Healthcare, which had paved the way for the micro-units.
VW has challenged the NLRB's decision to permit the 2015 vote at the plant and the German automaker has refused to bargain with the employees, saying it wants its entire blue-collar workforce to decide the union issue.
VW appealed the NLRB's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Earlier this week, its lawyers said in a brief that the board departed from the agency's clear precedent "holding that the way an employer has organized its operations is a 'particularly significant' community of interest factor."
Also, the brief said that if the board's decision is consistent with Specialty Healthcare, then that case must itself be found "arbitrary and capricious" and should be overturned.
Earlier this month, the NLRB filed its own complaint against VW related to the automaker's refusal to bargain with the UAW at the factory.
The complaint involved health insurance benefits for plant workers and a change in work hours for some skilled trades employees. The NLRB said the insurance matter and work hours are "mandatory subjects for the purposes of collective bargaining."
But VW, in an answer to that complaint filed this week, reiterated that the UAW unit wasn't appropriate and was "improperly certified based solely upon the extent of the union's organizational efforts."
VW added that a ruling in the Court of Appeals case "likely will be dispositive of the issues raised by this complaint."
In 2014, Chattanooga VW plant workers voted against UAW representation 712 to 626.
The new bill filed Thursday, known as the Representation Fairness Restoration Act, is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. Along with Corker and Alexander, Georgia's other U.S. senator, David Perdue, also is a co-sponsor from the region.
Other co-sponsors are John Boozman (R-Ark.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.