Governors decry United Auto Workers push to unionize car factories in six southern states [Video]

Six Republican governors are condemning efforts by the United Auto Workers to organize car factories in their states, a flash point as the labor group tries to build on its success last year winning concessions from the Big Three automakers by making inroads in the historically union-averse South. 

“We have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by,” the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas said Tuesday in a joint statement. 

The governors spoke out against the UAW a day before 4,300 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., are set to start voting on whether to join the union. The factory is Volkswagen’s North American electric-vehicle assembly hub, where the UAW narrowly lost union votes in 2014 and 2019. Workers at the plant will cast ballots from Wednesday through Friday evening. 

Volkswagen has said it respects the …