A worker cleans a Volkswagen logo.A Volkswagen employee trying to stop the United Auto Workers from gaining a foothold at the company’s Chattanooga assembly plant turned over to management anti-union petitions with the names of 563 hourly workers.
“There are no duplicates,” said plant worker Mike Burton. “I made sure it was a scrubbed list. They’re now in the hands of management.”
The “no2uaw” website said that all the signatures are dated from Sept. 9 through Friday. Most petitions were submitted during the last six work days at evening shift change, the site said.
Last month, the UAW said it had collected a majority of the names of about 1,600 production and skilled maintenance workers on cards it handed out seeking authorization to represent the employees.
Gary Casteel, a UAW regional director based in Lebanon, Tenn., said if petition-takers have about 30 percent of the non-management workers, then few of the employees at the factory haven’t made up their minds.