UAW Triumphs in Tennessee Volkswagen Union Vote Mother Jones [Video]

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For decades, unionizing in the American South was like cutting a five-acre field with nail clippers: time-consuming, grueling, and largely ineffective—though not technically impossible. 

But on Friday, hourly workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, defied the long-standing barriers by voting overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union (UAW). Late that night, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported that 73 percent of the 3,600 workers at the manufacturing plant participated in the election and voted to join the UAW; this was out of a total of 84 percent of eligible workers who cast ballots. Reuters reports that the Volkswagen plant is the first in the South to unionize through an election since the 1940s.

“Many of the talking heads and the pundits have said to me, repeatedly, when we announced this campaign, ‘You can’t win in the South.’ …