Tennessee

Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Have Filed for a Union Election

Published

10 months ago

March 18, 2024

Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Have Filed for a Union Election

Autoworkers will vote on whether to form a union at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the company’s only factory on the planet without a union.

On Monday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) filed for an election to represent all four thousand of the plant’s hourly employees, after the union said a “supermajority” of workers signed union cards in one hundred days. Unlike in the last three failed drives at this plant, this time, the UAW has publicly laid out its strategy to support worker-led organizing across the nonunion auto and battery plant sector at companies like Toyota, Rivian, Hyundai, Mercedes, and Volkswagen.

The strategy is for workers to announce their organizing drives once they have reached 30 percent on signed union authorization cards, hold rallies with community and labor supporters at the 50 percent mark, and demand voluntary recognition when they reach 70 percent, having grown their organizing committee to include workers from every shift and job classification. If the company refuses, the workers file for an election with the National Labor Relations Board.

Volkswagen is the first nonunion plant to clear that milestone. More than ten thousand workers at thirteen nonunion carmakers and two dozen facilities nationwide have signed union cards since last November, when the UAW announced an ambitious goal to organize one hundred fifty thousand autoworkers.

That’s roughly the same number of workers covered under the Big 3 contracts at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. The union captivated the labor movement last fall with a Big 3 strike that won members landmark contracts.

The UAW was circumspect about confirming whether 70 percent of workers in the Chattanooga plant had indeed signed union cards. But the union’s strategy indicates that workers have built enough energy and momentum to file for an election.

In a new video released by the union, Volkswagen workers explain why they’re voting yes: to improve working conditions, to gain representation in management meetings, to fix broken equipment, and to win adequate health care and a better personal leave policy.

“We don’t have much in the way of paid time off,” Isaac Meadows, a production team member in assembly, told me. “Money comes secondary in all our conversations.”

Workers at Volkswagen have no sick time, and annual plant closures eat into their time-off bank. Meadows has ninety-six hours of paid time off. “When we have our scheduled shutdowns in the winter and in the summer, the company takes most of it,” he said. “And then when we do come back to work, we’re required to work a lot of Saturdays.”

Workers want to take back their weekends, or at least receive more notice if they are scheduled to work on the weekend on top of earning time and half. They currently are notified of weekend work on Thursday and earn time and half only if they’ve worked over forty hours during the week.

Zach Costello, a trainer at the plant, said the last union drive in 2019, which the union lost narrowly by fifty-seven votes, outmaneuvered by political and company opposition, was marred because the UAW needed to clean house.

At the time, a Justice Department investigation revealed long-standing corruption in the union, including embezzlement, kickbacks, and collusion with employers. Thirteen union officials went to jail, including two former presidents, after pleading guilty to embezzlement and racketeering charges.

“When you don’t see something good coming from unions, you assume that they have no purpose, because it seems like an extra step that you don’t need,” he said.

With reformers at the helm, the UAW no longer carries the patina of a union mired in corruption and complacency, as do-nothing leaders in the pocket of management settled one subpar contract after another.

Back in 2019, my coworkers “couldn’t point to a time in their lives where they were watching the news and saw, ‘Oh, my God, look what they did,” said Costello in reference to gains of the Big 3 stand-up strike. “That’s amazing. We can do that.”

The UAW has faced repeated defeats at Volkswagen and other automakers. But while the companies succeeded in routing their workers in forming a union, the defeats were never complete. A nucleus of workplace organizers, a group that refused to accept the bosses’ tyrannical power over them, remained. When the Big 3 autoworkers bested the auto companies in their strike last year and notched landmark contracts, they were ready to stand up and renew their organizing push.

Yolanda Peoples, a third-generation autoworker on the engine assembly line, is one of those worker-leaders who was hired in 2011, when the plant opened, attracting eighty-five thousand applications for two thousand jobs. People said the organizing committee got to 50 percent a lot sooner than in previous drives thanks to the use of electronic cards. While all three shifts are covered by the organizing committee, they are also vocal in their support of the union drive.

In previous drives, “the people that were pushing for the UAW, it was like we were part of a secret society,” she remembered. “We had to be real hush-hush about it because we didn’t want to get in any trouble with HR because we said the word ‘union.’ So it was real hard for us to get the word around to our coworkers.” As they again have entered the organizing arena, worker-leaders have learned from these past defeats.

But the terrain of struggle inside the plant has also changed over the years. That change includes the backgrounds of the plant’s workforce and a broadly representative organizing committee.

In 2014, nine out of ten workers at the plant were white and the majority of them men. Chattanooga’s population is 184,000, with 59 percent of residents white and 29 percent black, according to the latest census estimates. Racist dog whistles were effective at dividing the workforce. The conservative front group Americans for Tax Reform rented billboards around Chattanooga emblazoned with the message: “UNITED AUTO OBAMA WORKERS.”

That divide-and-conquer tactic is less effective now, especially among former union members. Meadows was a union worker in Reno, Nevada. Coming from a union stronghold, he said the biggest obstacle for the campaign was overcoming the South’s deep-seated skepticism and hostility to unions, especially among younger workers who learn anti-unionism from family members. The UAW has been in the crosshairs of the state’s Republican politicians and outside lobbyists from Washington, DC.

But Meadows said that among his Nigerian, Vietnamese, Colombian, and Ukrainian coworkers, there are different sentiments toward unions. “I think because of our great diversity, it’s diluted some of that Southern political mentality. And so it’s making the conversation easier.”

Meadows said Volkswagen prides itself on being a globally progressive company. That has had some impact on its workforce, recently celebrating the contributions of African Americans during Black History Month. The question is whether, should workers win their election, the company will translate those lofty progressive values into bargaining a contract to recognize the contributions of Meadows, Peoples, Costello, and thousands of their coworkers in making it a successful company.

“We take pride in the work we do,” said Victor Vaughn, an assembly worker on the logistics line last month. “We want to be recognized for what we do, not be taken advantage of.”

Today, in a union press release, he said: “We are voting yes for our union because we want Volkswagen to be successful.” But he says that success shouldn’t come at the cost of bodily injury.

“Just the other day, I was almost hit by four five-hundred-plus-pound crates while I was driving to deliver parts,” said Vaughn. “That incident should’ve been followed up within the hour, but even after I clocked out no one asked me about it. Volkswagen has partnered with unionized workforces around the world to make their plants safe and successful. That’s why we’re voting for a voice at Volkswagen here in Chattanooga.”

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Tennessee

Chris Stamos’ family home lost in California wildfires. Tennessee, CWS title season items were in his room

Published

2 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Chris Stamos’ family home lost in California wildfires. Tennessee, CWS title season items were in his room

Connie Stamos was cooking dinner when the evacuation order came down.

Get out of Altadena.

She grabbed her laptop and the family cat, Socks, as a fire birthed Tuesday in nearby Eaton Canyon and spread on powerful winds, threatening the cozy town tucked between Pasadena and the San Gabriel Mountains.

Chris Stamos got a call the following morning from his mom, who came back to a forever-changed Altadena. The former Tennessee baseball pitcher heard his mom tell him they lost the house.

“I was like, ‘What do you mean we lost the house? Where did you put it?’ ” Stamos said. “She was like, ‘No, the fires unexpectedly blew the wrong way.’ ”

The Stamos family house was destroyed by the Eaton Fire, one of the fires that is ravaging Los Angeles County. They likely lost everything in it, including Stamos’ cherished baseball keepsakes from his career with a final stop at Tennessee.

Why the Altadena house meant so much to the Stamos family

Stamos received a video from Connie earlier Tuesday. It showed planters outside blown over and broken by the winds. She laughed and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about those when he helps with the gardening.

Hours later, the fire had started and the winds were no laughing matter. Connie fled the home.

“It was a beautiful home and a beautiful project,” Stamos said. “We had everything we wanted.”

The little house on Callecita Drive stood as a picture of a fresh chapter.

Connie was an empty nester by 2019. Her sons, Alex and Chris, were playing baseball at Principia College, a Division III school in Illinois. She was widowed in 2016 when Nick, her husband and the boys’ father, died. She had retired after decades working Disney and started a real estate business.

The fixer-upper a few roads away from their longtime home was perfect.

Connie planned a total remodel to make the house special, but the COVID pandemic shuttered them. She could not get permits nor builders to work on the house. The boys were home in the two-bedroom house so she converted the garage into a space for Chris.

“It was miserable,” Stamos said. “But as miserable as it was, you look back on it now and it was such a unique time in our lives. You can only sit back and laugh about how terrible every circumstance was.”

The family hunkered down together. They wasted time watching television in the back room. They played video games with cousins that lived nearby.

The house became a home, then it became what Connie wanted: She redid the whole house, doubling the size and redesigning it to fit her vision. The project was completed in fall 2022.

Stamos remembers Connie’s joy when she pulled a turkey out of the new oven in the finished home on Thanksgiving that year.

“We got our money’s worth with it in terms of memories and in terms of laughs,” said Stamos, who is living in Austin and working in sales.

Replacing baseball memorabilia on Chris Stamos’ mind

Connie didn’t pack clothes or belongings when she fled. She headed an hour north to Acton to stay with her boyfriend, Steve, planning to come back to evacuate bigger items in the morning.

“That morning, the neighborhood was on fire,” Stamos said.

Stamos got the call from his mom that morning. He stepped out of a quarterly evaluation with one of his bosses, heeding horrible news over the phone like he did when he was 16 and his father died.

Cherished keepsakes from his dad and childhood are gone. He thinks family pictures can be replaced.

Many of the most irreplaceable possessions are from his baseball journey.

Stamos had the jersey he wore when Tennessee won the national title in his bedroom. He had his senior day gift from UT, a watercolor painting of him pitching. He displayed framed jerseys and every glove he used in college.

“It is hard to lose little stuff like that,” Stamos said. “A glove is a piece of leather but it has a story.”

Stamos kept countless baseball items because they spoke to hard work and a crazy path.

He had hats and clothing that reminded him of walking through snow at 4 a.m. to work out at Principia. He had the first glove he got at Cal when he landed in Berkeley for the 2023 season. He had College World Series pieces and Tennessee history, which he helped make as an essential member of the pitching staff.

It was all a reminder of 20 years of work put into baseball.

“That stuff was earned,” said Stamos, who was 3-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 22 games for Tennessee.

What is next for the Stamos family after the Eaton fire

Connie returned to Callecita Drive on Thursday with her brother. They got by the yellow tape and beheld the devastation.

“They got to see what was left, which turned out to be not a house,” Stamos said.

The Eaton fire has destroyed or damaged approximately 7,000 structures and killed five as of Saturday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.

The Stamoses are navigating their next steps. Connie had to buy daily staples like clothing, shoes and toiletries. They have insurance that they expect will provide aid. Recreating a life and a community will take longer.

“I have told everyone that if there is someone that is built for obstacles, it is Connie Stamos,” Stamos said. “She is a freaking rockstar. It breaks my heart because she doesn’t deserve something like this.”

The family set up a GoFundMe on Friday with a goal of raising $15,000 to provide temporary housing and replace essentials. It eclipsed $50,000 on Saturday with a push from Knoxville, Vols fans and many Tennessee baseball players and their families.

Stamos has talked with Vols coach Tony Vitello about getting replacements for some of the items lost. He tears up thinking about the support he feels from those he met in his one year at Tennessee, calling it a “blank-check relationship” that is “filling the hole of uncertainty.”

“They watched a kid throw a baseball and now they are doing whatever they can to help the kid’s mom,” Stamos said.

The experience of loss has been unexpected, leading to tear-filled phone calls.

Stamos knows California is no stranger to fires and such disasters happen. The leap from it could happen to it happened to you is large and it happened so quickly.

It’s surreal, Stamos said, but everyone is safe and the Stamoses are moving forward as best as they can after losing the drafty little house they made a home.

Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson or Bluesky @bymikewilson.bsky.social. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.

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Tennessee

East Tennessee saw 118 crashes overnight during Friday snow, TDOT says

Published

11 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

East Tennessee saw 118 crashes overnight during Friday snow, TDOT says

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The East Tennessee region saw 118 crashes from midnight Friday into Saturday morning, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Mark Nagi.

Ice and snow bought to the area by an early year winter storm caused many of those crashes. The storm created conditions that Nagi said are still dangerous for drivers.

Previous Coverage: THP, TDOT warns of possibility of treacherous conditions after winter storm hits East Tennessee

“People just need to understand that for the next few days, they’re certainly going to see patches of snow and ice on a lot of our roads,” Nagi said Saturday morning.

He said his department pretreated state roads, but cold temperatures could create problems for the next few days.

“Yeah, our crews pretreated roadways all day Thursday, and they have been on the job since the early morning hours yesterday,“ Nagi said. ”The challenges you run into is that there’s going to be a lot of refreezing, more than likely on our interstates and state routes.”

Previous Coverage: TDOT snowplow overturns on snowy TN highway

With that in mind, Nagi said, staying off the roads isn’t just about keeping drivers safe; Nagi said crews need the space too.

“It’s extremely dangerous work that our crews do each and every day, and especially during a winter weather event. Over in Smith County, there was a semi that hit one of our trucks,” Nagi said, adding that no one was hurt. “That’s why if folks can stay at home, please do. But if you do have to be on the roads, please give our crews the extra room that they need to to do their jobs.”

The Tennessee Highway Patrol gave their own stats Saturday morning. According to THP, the agency received 850 phone calls Friday and Saturday. Responses broke down like this from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday:

Calls: 382
Crashes with injuries: 12
Crashes with no injuries: 51
Motor assist: 140
Abandoned vehicles: 21
Obstruction in roadway: 3
Disabled vehicle: 1

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Tennessee

Tennessee vs. Texas Prediction, Odds and Key Players for Saturday, Jan. 11

Published

23 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Tennessee vs. Texas Prediction, Odds and Key Players for Saturday, Jan. 11

Tennessee lost its first game of the season at Florida in blowout fashion, but will turn around to face Texas, who is in the midst of a grueling part of its first SEC schedule.

There are few easy games in the SEC, and Texas is learning that quickly, losing its first two games of league play to Texas A&M and Auburn. Now, the team faces the elite defense of Tennessee, who is looking to bounce back off a loss on the road?

Can the Vols take care of business in Austin, or will a battle tested Texas team keep up and pull an upset?

Here’s our betting preview.

Spread

Moneyline

Total: 132.5 (Over -115/Under -105)

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

Tennessee

Chaz Lanier: The North Florida transfer continues to provide sound floor spacing for the Vols, shooting 44% from beyond the arc as the team’s primary shot taker. However, with a high 3-point rate comes some stinkers, like the one against Florida in which he made only one of his nine 3-point attempts. The Texas defense is stout at limiting three-point attempts as Lanier will need to put together a complete performance on the road.

Texas

Arthuer Kaluma: The Kansas State transfer had his best game of the season in a tight loss to Auburn, scoring 34 points on 12-for-16 shooting from the field, grabbing eight rebounds in the process. The forward has been shooting lights out from the perimeter this season – 52% – as he looks to guide Texas to a signature win.

I like Texas to hang around in this one with the team’s ability to break down the Tennessee offense in isolation situations and also have several capable three-point shooters on the floor.

The Vols compact defense forces teams to shoot from the perimeter at a high rate, the Vols are 341st in opponent 3-point rate as opponents hoist nearly 47% of shots from beyond the arc. While Texas likes to get its offense on the interior with players like Kaluma, Tre Johnson and Jordan Pope creating their own shot, the team is shooting 40% from deep this season.

Meanwhile, it’s the opposite for the other side of the floor, as Texas funnels teams inside to the rim and denies the perimeter. Tennessee’s offense is based around its off ball cutting and ball movement, but Texas does a good job of denying that and locking up at the rim, top 10 in field goal percentage allowed near the cup, per Haslametrics.

I think this game profiles to be a defensive minded affair with Texas having the better one-on-one shot creators to keep this one within a few possessions.

PICK: Texas +6.5

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.

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