The United Auto Workers today sought a new election at Chattanooga's Volkswagen assembly plant, but this time for a smaller unit of employees than in early 2014.
A filing with the National Labor Relations Board says that UAW Local 42 will seek an election on Nov. 5 and 6. The election will involve only the 164 full- and part-time maintenance, or skilled trades, employees at the plant.
Mike Cantrell, president of Local 42, said a key objective for the local union has been moving toward collective bargaining for the purpose of reaching a multi-year contract between Volkswagen and employees in Chattanooga.
"We support our colleagues in the skilled trades as they move toward formal recognition of their unit," he said in a statement.
Gary Casteel, secretary-treasurer of the UAW International union and director of the union's Transnational Department, said the international union will provide ongoing technical assistance to the local as it strives toward collective bargaining and a seat on the VW Global Group Works Council.
Casteel and Cantrell both said the timing of the filing with the NLRB is unrelated to the Volkswagen emissions scandal.
In August, a Facebook post on the page "Yes 2 UAW at Volkswagen" claimed that Local 42 members had decided to move forward with a vote of maintenance, or skilled workers, at the plant.
Maintenance employees keep up and fix the specialized plant equipment, and such a bargaining unit would be much smaller than that which voted against union recognition in February 2014.
In the 2014 election, the UAW lost the vote of blue-collar workers at VW by a 712 to 626 margin. It later claimed that outside interference by Republican politicians influenced the vote.
See more in Saturday's Times Free Press.