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Sources: Volkswagen seeks Obama admin’s help to unionize plant, despite election results

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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Volkswagen is planning to hand control of its Chattanooga plant to the United Auto Workers (UAW), even though UAW lost its election.

“Volkswagen is seriously considering discarding the election results in collusion with the union and gaining cover by a potential upcoming [National Labor Relations Board] decision,” Matt Patterson, executive director of the Center for Workplace Freedom, told The Daily Caller, citing multiple internal company sources. “They have a gun to their head in Germany. This will be an election overturned by bureaucratic fiat.”

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is holding a hearing April 21 to hear UAW’s complaint that its Chattanooga plant’s election was tainted by outside sources, including a statement from Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker. If the NLRB throws out the election, UAW will use the decision as legal cover to distribute union cards in the plant.

The Chattanooga plant’s February secret-ballot vote to remain non-union was seen as a major triumph for the right-to-work community. But Volkswagen has since been under intense pressure from the company’s highly influential German union IG-METAL to figure out how to void the election result. UAW president Bob King has long courted IG-METAL’s support.

UAW initially planned to unionize the plant by gaining enough authorization cards from workers, but agreed to a more proper secret-ballot election because it thought it had enough support in the plant to win.

Volkswagen did not immediately return a request for comment.

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