Southern Momentum, an anti-United Auto Workers group, said today that a neutrality agreement between Volkswagen and the UAW has “sold out” employees at Chattanooga’s VW plant.
“While UAW organizers are in our plant making implied promises of higher wages and bonuses to VW team members, the election agreement clearly spells out the UAW has already sold us out,” said anti-UAW VW employee Mike Jarvis in a statement.
Across the automotive industry, costs such as rubber, steel, aluminum and other materials are relatively fixed, the group said. Unions like the UAW have no ability to affect those costs, it said. However, the one thing they can do is affect labor costs which can make manufacturers less competitive than others, the group said.
“While its organizers are out there making a bunch of promises, the UAW, behind our backs, has already agreed to ‘maintaining and where possible enhancing’ VW’s cost advantages,” Jarvis said. “Since the UAW is negotiating over our wages and benefits, it means their organizers are out here misleading a bunch of people and it’s very possible the UAW, in order to unionize us, has already agreed to give away what we’ve already got.”
Southern Momentum said that if the UAW and VW cannot reach a contract in “an appropriate period of time,” the election agreement states that Volkswagen and the UAW could, ultimately, have an arbitrator dictate the terms of a contract.