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Matt PattersonMore people plan to fight subpoenas served by the United Auto Workers for a hearing next week over the union's appeal for a revote at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant.
Matt Patterson, who heads the anti-UAW Center for Worker Freedom, said today that his group intends to file a petition to revoke the subpoenas with the National Labor Relations Board.
He also said that Grover Norquist of the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform, of which the center is a part, also intends to seek to revoke the UAW subpoena. Tucker Nelson, also of ATR, plans to fight the subpoena as well, Patterson said.
Patterson said he's not planning on being in Chattanooga on Monday for the scheduled NLRB hearing.
"Our grounds are is that this is a fishing expedition and we don't feel compelled to comply," he said.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, who also was subpoenaed, said the governor didn't expect to be in Chattanooga for the hearing.
The UAW issued subpoenas for two dozen people, including top Republican political leaders in the state as well as for a variety of documents and communications.
The union has appealed the February vote in which they lost a bid to organize the VW plant's workforce, citing interference by third-party groups and politicians.
Bob King, the UAW's president, has said the NLRB's rules call for the use of subpoenas "as part of the truth-seeking exercise."
See more in Thursday's Times Free Press.