UAW Makes Corker Comments Center Of NLRB Challenge

The Center for Worker Freedom has this digital billboard in Chattanooga, a mile away from union offices and not far from the VW plant. Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

The United Auto Workers will depend on statements by Tennessee Senator Bob Corker as evidence that the narrow Volkswagen union vote this month was unfair. The UAW filed a challenge with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday.

The 13-page document suggests Corker’s guaranteeing expansion of VW’s Tennessee plant if workers reject the union was part of a “coordinated effort…to coerce a no-vote.”

UAW President Bob King tells NPR’s Hear and Now that there is some old case law that could cause the NLRB to side with the union and call for another vote.

“I think it’s really clear that what Sen. Corker did and what others in that state did was wrong – and was morally wrong for me – and I think the NLRB will say that it destroyed the conditions for a fair election.”

In a statement, Corker says Volkswagen’s 1,500 employees “spoke very clearly.”  He also says he expects that the vote challenge will slow down the German automaker’s decision to expand the Chattanooga plant and build a new SUV there.