*Update from Reuters: “Volkswagen’s top labor representative threatened on Wednesday to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the southern United States if its workers there are not unionized…”
“”I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again,” said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW’s works council.
“If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor” of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW’s supervisory board, said.
The 20-member panel – evenly split between labor and management – has to approve any decision on closing plants or building new ones.”
Read more here: VW workers may block southern U.S. deals if no unions: labor chief
So the mindless minions who vote for Conservatives and Republicans very likely cost their communities, their state, and Americans thousands of jobs. Good job. You should know better than to listen to a bunch of politicians who would rather lie even when the truth sounded better.
However, the one bright spot here is that if Volkswagen does decide to build another plant in America, it will go to those who deserve it: Union workers.
Original Article:
The United Auto Workers Union, (UAW), has been trying to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The unionization effort was defeated in a secret ballot; 712 – 626. If a worker is given all of the information and then still refuses to join a union; that is one thing. However, in this instance, Republican politicians lied to the workers so they wouldn’t want to unionize.
First the back-story: Volkswagen plants worldwide are unionized. The ONLY auto manufacturing plants Volkswagen owns that are NOT unionized are the two in China and the one in Tennessee. VW owns 106 manufacturing plants worldwide.
Volkswagen has found that a successful business plan is to have what they call a “work council” in each plant. These are groups made up of management and workers. They work together to ensure that the workers and management are getting what they both need. This is how union representation works. The union representatives and management work together to get what they all want. It is called compromise.
However, under American labor law, Volkswagen cannot set up a works council like they want without the plant being unionized first.
Having union representation for their workers is the business model of Volkswagen. It is what 
they do, and what they have found works for them all over the world. So, at some point, the owners of the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee are going to get the union representation that they want, whether it is in Tennessee or somewhere else where they can have union representation for their workers.
When it appeared that the union vote might succeed, Republicans and Conservatives began freaking out that there might be a union shop in the South. Republicans and Conservatives know that if unions get a toehold in the South, everyone will want to be in one once they see the benefits.
Unions give more leverage to the worker and less leverage to the management. Republicans and Conservatives are ideologically opposed to unions for this very reason. Republican and Conservative ideology says that management in business, the 1%, Wall Street, and large multi-national corporations deserve to have all the power and wealth in this country and the rest of America deserves to have nothing.
Unions tend to be big supporters of Democrats as well. Republicans have worked for thirty years to weaken the unions so they can no longer compete monetarily in the political process with big business, (Republican and Conservative supporters), and Republicans will have an easier time establishing the “permanent Republican majority” that hey want. (In other parts of the world, a permanent right-wing Republican government is known as Fascism).
So, a couple of weeks ago, Senator Bob Corker, (R-TN), and some of the Republican legislators in the state began lying to the workers and threatening the management at the VW plant.
From billmoyers.com: According to Sen. Corker: “…should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga.” [In other words: If you want more jobs vote against the unionization efforts.] VW officials responded with a terse press release saying, “There is no connection between our Chattanooga employees’ decision about whether to be represented by a union and the decision about where to build” the SUV.
State Sen. Bo Watson (R-Chattanooga) told the Free-Press, “Should the workers choose to be represented by the United Auto Workers, then I believe additional incentives for expansion will have a very tough time passing the Tennessee Senate.” State Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, a Democrat, responded, “In my 20 years… I’ve never seen such a massive intrusion into the affairs of a private company.”
Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam was more circumspect but no less clear. His spokesman said, “Any discussions of incentives are part of additional and continued talks with VW, which we look forward to.” In other words, nice tax break you’ve got there, Volkswagen — it’d be a shame if something happened to it.” Why Right-Wing Lawmakers Are Desperate to Stop a Union Vote in Tennessee.
It is against federal law to interfere with union organizing efforts. What these Republicans did was clearly outside of the law. The only question is this: Will they be held accountable for this? The answer is probably not. The only saving grace for these politicians might be that the law states “employers may not…” The text of the law: Under the NLRA, an employer may not:
interfere with or restrain employees who are exercising their rights to organize, bargain collectively, and engage in other concerted activities for their own protection
interfere with the formation of any labor organization—or contribute financial or other support to it
encourage or discourage membership in a labor organization by discriminating in hiring, tenure, or employment conditions
discharge or discriminate against employees who have filed charges or testified under the NLRA, or
refuse to bargain collectively with the employees’ majority representative. Federal Labor Laws
This just another instance where it is obvious that what the Republicans and Conservatives say 
is exactly opposite of what they do. Republicans and Conservatives have been telling Americans for three decades that the Republican Party is the party of business. They are the party that will side with the management of a business over the workers.
In this instance, their ideology, which can boiled down to one word – greed – is trumping their stated ideology of being for big business. It isn’t that they are for big business; it is that they are against the American worker and anything that will improve their lives or that will give them more leverage and the management less. As you can see in this instance the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement are so against American workers they are willing to go against their own stated goal of helping big business.
Then we have the workers who through fear and intimidation voted against their own best economic interests. This is a phenomenon that occurs quite often in the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement: Conservatives mindlessly pulling the lever for Republican politicians even though by doing so they are doing harm to themselves, their families, their neighbors, their state and their country.