Tennessee
Tennessee Volkswagen workers to vote on union membership in test of UAW's plan to expand its ranks
DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers’ ambitious drive to expand its reach to nonunion factories across the South and elsewhere faces a key test Friday night, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will finish voting on whether to join the union.
The UAW’s ranks in the auto industry have dwindled over the years as foreign-based companies with nonunion U.S. plants have sold increasingly more vehicles.
Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019 just as federal prosecutors were breaking up a bribery-and-embezzlement scandal at the union.
But this time, the UAW is operating under new leadership, directly elected by its members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers. The union’s pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, was elected on a platform of cleaning up after the scandal and turning more confrontational with automakers. An emboldened Fain, backed by President Joe Biden, led the union in a series of strikes last fall against Detroit’s automakers that resulted in lucrative new contracts.
The new contracts raised union wages by a substantial one-third, arming Fain and his organizers with enticing new offers to present to workers at Volkswagen and other companies.
“I’m very confident,” said Isaac Meadows, an assembly line worker in Chattanooga who helped lead the union organizing drive at the plant. “The excitement is really high right now. We’ve put a lot of work into it, a lot of face-to-face conversations with co-workers from our volunteer committee.”
The UAW’s supporters have faced stout resistance, though, from Volkswagen, which argues that union membership isn’t necessary. The company contends that its pay levels are competitive for the Chattanooga area and that it treats its employees well. The factory’s 4,300 production workers make Atlas SUVs and the ID.4 electric vehicle at the 3.8 million-square-foot (353,353-square-meter) plant.
Six Southern governors, including Tennessee’s Bill Lee, have lined up against union membership. They warned the workers in a joint statement last week that joining the UAW could cost them their jobs and threaten the region’s economic progress.
Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the UAW, said there is a good chance that this election could bring the union a historic victory. Public opinion, Masters said, is now generally more aligned with unions than it was in the past.
To approve membership, though, the workers in Chattanooga will have to look past the warnings that joining the union, with the accompanying higher wages, would lead to job losses. Since the UAW’s new contracts were signed in the fall with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, all three companies have cut a relatively small number of factory positions. But Ford CEO Jim Farley has said that his company will have to rethink where it builds future vehicles because of the strike.
“While the UAW’s reputation has improved as a result of new leadership and contracts, it’s still associated with a decline in the auto industry,” Masters said.
Shortly after the Detroit contracts were ratified, Volkswagen and other nonunion companies handed their workers big pay raises. Fain characterized those wage increases as the “UAW bump” and asserted that they were intended to keep the union out of the plants.
Last fall, Volkswagen raised factory pay by 11%, lifting top wages to around $29 an hour, or about $60,000 a year, excluding benefits and an attendance bonus. VW said its pay exceeds the median household income for the Chattanooga area, which was $54,480 last May, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
But under the UAW contracts, top production workers at GM, for instance, now earn $36 an hour, or about $75,000 a year excluding benefits and profit sharing, which ranged from $10,400 at Ford to $13,860 at Stellantis this year. By the end of the contract in 2028, top-scale GM workers would make over $89,000.
Zach Costello, a worker who trains new employees at the Volkswagen plant, said pay shouldn’t be benchmarked against typical wages in the Chattanooga area.
“How about we decide what we’re worth, and we get paid what we’re worth?” he asked.
VW asserts that its factories are safer than the industry average, based on data reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And the company contends that it considers workers’ preferences in scheduling. It noted that it recently agreed to change the day that third-shift workers start their week so that they have Fridays and Saturdays off.
But Meadows, whose job involves preparing vehicles for the assembly line after the auto bodies are painted, said the company adds overtime or sends workers home early whenever it wants.
“People are just kind of fed up with it,” he said.
VW, he argued, doesn’t report all injuries to the government, instead often blaming pre-existing conditions that a worker might have. The union has filed complaints of unfair labor practices, including allegations that the company barred workers from discussing unions during work time and restricted the distribution of union materials.
Volkswagen said in statements that it supports the right to vote on union representation, and it denied the union’s allegations.
If the union prevails in the vote at the VW plant, it would mark the first time that the UAW has represented workers at a foreign-owned automaking plant in the South. It would not, however, be the first union auto assembly plant in the South. The UAW represents workers at two Ford assembly plants in Kentucky and two GM factories in Tennessee and Texas, as well as some heavy-truck manufacturing plants.
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee touted the state’s numerous economic achievements in his final annual Governor’s Address hosted by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, as he prepares to retire next year.
On stage at The Pinnacle March 10, Lee praised his administration’s work over the past seven years to lower poverty rates and expand industrial and economic diversity in the state.
But he pointed out that he has a lot to look forward to after leaving public office, namely his large family.
“It’s the best part of my life,” he said, chuckling. “People often ask me what I’m going to do next. And I say, ‘Well I have 11 grandchildren.’”
Lee emphasized Tennessee’s declining poverty rates, increasing educational scores and ability to attract a plethora of high-paying businesses as wins during his administration.
“We’ve watched our poverty rate fall below the national average for the first time in the state’s history,” he said. “People in Tennessee have greater access to opportunity than they ever have before.”
The number of economically distressed counties were “cut in half” in the last few years, thanks to increasing business opportunities, he said. “Distressed counties” is a designation of the nation’s poorest regions, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
“Our economy has attracted $55 billion in investment — just $11 billion this past year,” he said. “300,000 jobs created in our state in the last seven years.”
Lee called out companies like Starbucks, which announced on March 3 that the company’s southeastern U.S. corporate office is coming to Davidson County; In-n-Out, which is currently establishing a $125 million corporate hub in Franklin; software company Oracle, which is building a global headquarters on Nashville’s East Bank; Elon Musk’s xAi; Ford and more as drivers of prosperity in the state.
“They’ve figured out that the business environment is here, and the culture is what they want for their people, and the opportunity exists for them to be more successful in our state than they might be across the country,” he said.
He also praised the Music City Loop, the privately funded tunneling project helmed by Musk’s The Boring Company to connect Nashville International Airport to the Tennessee State Capitol Building. Despite recent Metro Nashville opposition, Lee called the project an “innovative new transportation model to “move people…without charging taxpayer dollars.”
“It’s very exciting to me what they might [represent] for the future of transportation in our city and beyond,” he said. “Despite the political arguments about that, the pragmatic business argument for that is incredibly exciting.”
Lee closed the speech thanking business leaders for their support during the past seven years of his administration.
“I could brag about this state for hours,” he said. “Because I’ve come to know her people, I’ve come to know her communities, her leaders, her uniqueness and her prominence, and I have been awed by what I’ve come to know in the past seven years. And I am honored. It’s been the highest honor of my life to be in the spot I am in.
“Our best days are ahead of us,” he said. “There will be a future governor that can (bring) better statistics, and better opportunity, and more hope for our people. And that makes me happy. There will be more, and there will be greater, and we together will share in what that looks like.”
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Cooper Bowser had 21 points and 11 rebounds as No. 6 seed Furman beat top-seeded East Tennessee State 76-61 on Monday night to secure the Southern Conference tournament title and an NCAA tournament bid.
Furman (22-12) won its eighth SoCon title in program history and first since defeating Chattanooga in 2023.
Tom House added 13 points off the bench for Furman and Alex Wilkins, who scored a career-high 34 to help rally from an 11-point halftime deficit in the semifinals, scored 12. Bowser was 9-of-12 from the field to help the Paladins shoot 51%.
Brian Taylor II scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half for ETSU (23-11), which was in the title game for the second time in three seasons. Blake Barkley added 14 points and Jaylen Smith had 10.
House made Furman’s sixth 3-pointer of the first half to extend the lead to 37-27 with four minutes left. The Paladins led 42-35 at the break.
Wilkins’ steal and fast-break dunk extended Furman’s lead to 72-61 with 2:11 left and Bowser added a hook shot in the lane on their next possession for a 13-point lead.
ETSU went 2-of-7 from the field over the final five minutes to halt a comeback attempt. The Buccaneers finished 3-of-16 from 3-point range and 10 of 18 at the free throw line.
The Buccaneers were trying for their first NCAA bid since 2020.
Tennessee
Titans free agency: Tennessee signing offensive weapons to help QB Cam Ward, bolstering coach Robert Saleh’s defense, reports say
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Let the spending spree begin. The NFL offseason is now in full swing as free agents are beginning to sign with new homes throughout the league ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft in April.
The Tennessee Titans are among the top franchises with the most cap space in the league.
Latest: Tennessee Titans reportedly trade young defensive tackle for Pro Bowl defensive end from New York Jets
Previous: Tennessee Titans release center Lloyd Cushenberry
Below is a look at the free agents and moves the Titans have reportedly made:
- Cornerback Alontae Taylor – three-year $60 million deal
- Cornerback Cor’Dale Flott – three-year $45 million deal
- Defensive tackle John Franklin-Meyers – three-year $63 million deal
- Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky – two-year deal
- Tight end Daniel Bellinger – three-year $24 million deal
- Wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson – four-year $70 million deal
- Long snapper Morgan Cox – re-signed one-year deal
Before the free-agency frenzy, the Titans released center Lloyd Cushenberry and also reportedly traded away defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat for Pro Bowl defensive end Jermaine Johnson.
Copyright 2025 WSMV. All rights reserved.
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