Eight Chattanooga Volkswagen workers have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board saying they were misled or coerced into signing cards requesting union representation at the plant.
They filed the charges against the United Auto Workers union through the NRLB’s Atlanta office with the assistance of attorneys from the Washington, D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The workers were not immediately identified.
The foundation has been actively opposing attempts by the UAW to organize the 2,500 Volkswagen hourly workers through the so-called card-check process, through which a union may be recognized by a company simply by obtaining signatures of more than 50 percent of the workforce.
UAW officials said recently that they now have cards signed by a majority of the workers at the plant, although the union declined to say how many have signed. A majority can be as few as 50 percent plus one, the UAW said.
The union wants Volkswagen to recognize it as the exclusive bargaining agent for the Chattanooga workers based on the majority signing cards, rather than calling for a vote on representation.
But the right-to-work foundation and others opposed to the UAW’s recognition are demanding a vote, and say that many employees were tricked into signing cards, or signed them under duress.
The workers who filed the complaint say they were told by UAW organizers “that a signature on the card was to call for a secret ballot unionization election,” the foundation said.
