Job security is top of the list as the United Auto Workers push Volkswagen to tweak its last, best and final offer to Chattanooga workers.
“If they can cut your job with no penalty, it doesn’t matter what your hourly wage is,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a livestream Wednesday evening. “American workers live in fear. Fear that if they ask for a dollar more, the boss is going to fire them or move the damn plant. That’s economic terrorism.”
In its existing offer, VW pledges that it won’t close, curtail, shut down or liquidate the Chattanooga plant during the four-year term of the contract, “unless conditions beyond the control of the company arise that make compliance with this commitment impractical.”
Those include a significant downturn in the economy that makes the plant unprofitable, changes in technology that make the plant’s production methods obsolete or disasters like floods, earthquakes or fires that damage or destroy the plant.