Tennessee is one of the states leading the nation in both automotive manufacturing strength and recent EV investments. At the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Tennessee Manufacturers Association, we represent businesses and manufacturers statewide. Across our great state, Tennessee's automotive manufacturing sector generates over $40 billion in annual economic activity. On average, jobs in this industry are some of the best paying jobs our state has to offer, producing significant income and economic opportunities for middle-class and working families.
Much of the growth and investment in this sector has come from international automakers that, like other large employers, have found Tennessee to be a fitting home to grow their enterprises. Our educated, hardworking workforce and our economic climate, which rewards freedom and entrepreneurship, have combined to make the Volunteer State among the best places in the U.S. to live, work and start a business.
Now comes the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which saw our well-functioning model and decided to attempt to disrupt it for the sake of boosting its flagging membership. The union wants to organize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Workers and others in the community should know the dangers that come with joining up with the UAW.
Watch what they did in Michigan. Celebrated as a big win against the Big Three automakers, last year's strike actually led to the laying off of 5,000 workers and calcified the economic environment to the degree that industry growth in that state is near impossible for the foreseeable future. Is that really what we want to have happen in Tennessee? I don't think so.
Recognize that we live in a global economy and international manufacturing companies are not guaranteed to remain in states like Tennessee. If the economic environment changes, and unionization of the Chattanooga plant would bring about a major change, it could very easily take jobs to Mexico or elsewhere. Tennessee workers should choose instead to fortify our economic competitiveness, which is a rising tide lifting all ships.
Workers should be concerned about UAW tactics. Workers are being asked to voice their opinion about the union in public, often in the presence of pro-union colleagues and union representatives. A much better measure of worker attitudes toward the union as mentioned by Workers for Opportunity would be a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.
The UAW also wants workers to make a major decision about their careers in the absence of all available information. The union and its powerful allies in Washington are pressuring international automakers to accept neutrality agreements, contracts under which employers agree to remain silent during an organizing campaign. Under these kinds of agreements, workers only get one side of the story — the union's side. Past union scandals or questionable management of dues may go unexplored. Real world consequences of unionization may go unexamined.
These tactics demonstrate that the UAW is not as committed to workplace democracy as the people of Tennessee. In 2022, we showed our commitment to this important principle by enshrining right-to-work in the state constitution. And while that law protects workers from being forced to join a union or pay union dues, it cannot prevent the union from being the sole bargaining entity if the UAW gains a foothold on VW's Chattanooga plant.
Tennessee and international automakers have formed an important partnership that has brought prosperity to thousands of workers without any involvement of interference from the UAW. I hope that partnership will continue.
Bradley Jackson is the president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Tennessee Manufacturers Association.