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Wednesday, October 28, 2026Oct 28

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Dates set for vote on UAW-VW contract in Chattanooga. More details released

Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Walt Westfield, a senior organizer with Jobs With Justice in East Tennessee, waves to cars during a protest outside the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant. United Auto Workers members at the plant will vote on a contract with the company Feb. 18-19, 2026.
Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Walt Westfield, a senior organizer with Jobs With Justice in East Tennessee, waves to cars during a protest outside the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant. United Auto Workers members at the plant will vote on a contract with the company Feb. 18-19, 2026. Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Walt Westfield, a senior organizer with Jobs With Justice in East Tennessee, waves to cars during a protest outside the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant. United Auto Workers members at the plant will vote on a contract with the company Feb. 18-19, 2026.

After nearly a year and a half of negotiations, Volkswagen Chattanooga employees will vote next week on a tentative contract agreement between the company and the United Auto Workers union.

Polls will open 1 p.m. Feb. 18 at the Volkswagen Conference Center and voting will close at 4 p.m. Feb. 19. People in line at that time will still be allowed to vote.

“After making history as the first Southern autoworkers outside the Big Three to join the UAW, we have won a tentative contract deal that provides 20 percent across-the-board wage increases, affordable health care, real job security and more,” officials from the Local 42 bargaining committee said in a post online.

“As the highest authority in our union, the membership will now review the details of the agreement and vote on ratification,” the post said. “Your elected bargaining committee is proud of what we’ve accomplished in this first deal and is endorsing this agreement.”

Volkswagen said last week it would refrain from further comment on the deal out of respect for the process.