In this articleVOW-FFFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTVolkswagens are seen in the employee parking lot at the Volkswagen automobile assembly plant on March 20, 2024 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Elijah Nouvelage | Getty ImagesDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the UAW late Friday – marking the Detroit union’s first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South. The vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.”This is a really profound victory for the UAW and the labor movement in general,” said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, a former Department of Labor official and an international and public affairs professor at Columbia University. “It’s also a really decisive victory.”Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support of the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting from Wednesday to Friday.The German automaker and union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote. The NLRB still needs to certify the results.Here’s what investors should know about the vote and next steps for the UAW:UAW momentumThe UAW saw the Friday vote as the union’s best shot at organizing the VW plant following strikes and record contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2023.The union, led by President Shawn Fain, is using the deals with the Detroit automakers, which included record wage increases and benefits, as springboards for an unprecedented organizing drive of 13 non-union automakers in the U.S.Other than Volkswagen, the union is targeting: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo. The drive covers nearly 150,000 U.S. autoworkers, according to the UAW.”This is likely to be contagious,” said Hertel-Fernandez. “Where workers see successes in organizing or strikes, it tends to inspire further action in that industry and beyond it.”Kelcey Smith displays UAW buttons in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 10, 2024. Kevin Wurm | The Washington Post | Getty ImagesNext up for the union are 5,200 Mercedes-Benz workers at an SUV plant in Vance, Alabama. Workers at the facility earlier this month filed NLRB paperwork for a formal election that is scheduled for May 13 through May 17.”We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else,” Fain told VW workers Friday night following the historic vote. “So, thank you all, thank you all for your fight, for your work. And let’s get to it. Let’s go to work. And let’s win more for the working class all over this nation.”Impact on labor costsTop of the list of likely impacts from organizing efforts at VW is labor costs.UAW organizers used the record contracts with the Detroit automakers to gain support for the union in Chattanooga. UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and “substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.”But for the Big Three Detroit automakers — and their shareholders — the VW organizing drive could be a positive.GM, Ford and Stellantis have higher all-in labor costs than non-organized automakers such as VW. …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnIn this articleVOW-FFFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTVolkswagens are seen in the employee parking lot at the Volkswagen automobile assembly plant on March 20, 2024 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Elijah Nouvelage | Getty ImagesDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the UAW late Friday – marking the Detroit union’s first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South. The vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.”This is a really profound victory for the UAW and the labor movement in general,” said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, a former Department of Labor official and an international and public affairs professor at Columbia University. “It’s also a really decisive victory.”Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support of the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting from Wednesday to Friday.The German automaker and union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote. The NLRB still needs to certify the results.Here’s what investors should know about the vote and next steps for the UAW:UAW momentumThe UAW saw the Friday vote as the union’s best shot at organizing the VW plant following strikes and record contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2023.The union, led by President Shawn Fain, is using the deals with the Detroit automakers, which included record wage increases and benefits, as springboards for an unprecedented organizing drive of 13 non-union automakers in the U.S.Other than Volkswagen, the union is targeting: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo. The drive covers nearly 150,000 U.S. autoworkers, according to the UAW.”This is likely to be contagious,” said Hertel-Fernandez. “Where workers see successes in organizing or strikes, it tends to inspire further action in that industry and beyond it.”Kelcey Smith displays UAW buttons in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 10, 2024. Kevin Wurm | The Washington Post | Getty ImagesNext up for the union are 5,200 Mercedes-Benz workers at an SUV plant in Vance, Alabama. Workers at the facility earlier this month filed NLRB paperwork for a formal election that is scheduled for May 13 through May 17.”We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else,” Fain told VW workers Friday night following the historic vote. “So, thank you all, thank you all for your fight, for your work. And let’s get to it. Let’s go to work. And let’s win more for the working class all over this nation.”Impact on labor costsTop of the list of likely impacts from organizing efforts at VW is labor costs.UAW organizers used the record contracts with the Detroit automakers to gain support for the union in Chattanooga. UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and “substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.”But for the Big Three Detroit automakers — and their shareholders — the VW organizing drive could be a positive.GM, Ford and Stellantis have higher all-in labor costs than non-organized automakers such as VW. …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
