United Auto Workers’ Push for Unionization in Tennessee Sets Up Industry Disruption, Expert Says

Volkswagen Plant Chattanooga

After recent wins, the United Auto Workers (UAW) looks poised to take on the non-unionized automakers and, if successful, could disrupt the whole industry.

The UAW recently filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which employs around 4,000 autoworkers, as it looks to expand its reach to other automakers. A successful union vote in Chattanooga could be a key stepping stone in the UAW’s effort to break into the currently non-unionized auto plants, especially in the south, which has historically been less receptive to unions, all the while the UAW is being emboldened by labor-friendly regulators from the Biden administration, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Chattanooga Volkswagen Employees File Petition for Vote to Join United Auto Workers Union

Volkswagen Chattanooga

Volkswagen employees at a plant in Chattanooga have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote on whether workers will join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. 

“The milestone marks the first non-union auto plant to file for a union election among the dozens of auto plants where workers have been organizing in recent months,” UAW said in a press release. “The grassroots effort sprang up in the wake of the record victories for Big Three autoworkers in the UAW’s historic Stand Up Strike win.”

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Commentary: The Federal Government is Deciding Who Can Start a Small Business

Business Owner

Just when it seemed impossible for things to get tougher for small businesses, the federal government decided to make things worse.

Small businesses have had a tough run for the last few years. Record inflation, high interest rates, and workforce shortages have led to widespread pessimism among small businesses. The last thing they need is more government interference, but that is exactly what is happening.

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Pennsylvania House Committee Passes Forced-Unionism Amendment

A bill to enshrine union coercion in the Pennsylvania Constitution passed the state House Labor and Industry Committee 12-9 on Monday. 

The measure, identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly ratified last autumn, would prevent adoption of a “right-to-work” law saying nonunion workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. More broadly, the amendment would counteract statutes that check the power of labor organizations and, opponents fear, give public-sector union contracts primacy over state law. 

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Big Labor Growing Bolder in Badger State with Potential for Liberal Majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

A longtime Wisconsin factory worker charges the United Steelworkers threatened to have her fired for seeking to leave the union.  

It’s another brazen act by Badger State Big Labor, emboldened by a union-friendly governor and the prospects of the state Supreme Court taking a left turn, a worker’s freedom advocate tells The Wisconsin Daily Star. 

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Claiming ‘Democracy Under Attack,’ Biden Administration Looks to Make It Harder to Oust Unions

The day after President Joe Biden claimed “American democracy is under attack,” his administration took action to make it more difficult for employees to vote on whether or not they want to join a union.

At a Democrat Party campaign event on Wednesday, Biden said democracy is under attack by the “MAGA Republican Party,” referring to those who support former President Donald Trump.

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Commentary: Biden National Labor Relations Board Counsel Rewrites Labor Law History

Very soon after being confirmed in a razor-tight U.S. Senate vote last year as general counsel for the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Jennifer Abruzzo, formerly a lawyer for the radical Communications Workers of America union, made her agenda plain to all.

Clearly acting on the wishes of the man who nominated her for the job of NLRB general counsel, Big Labor President Joe Biden, Abruzzo broadcast her intention to wield the power of her office to help union officials grab monopoly-bargaining power over millions of additional workers.

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Amazon Prepares to Go on the Offensive Against Newly Unionized Employees

Amazon plans to go on the offensive against the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) following its successful bid to unionize Amazon workers on April 1 in New York City, according to legal documents filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Amazon intends to appeal the Amazon Labor Union’s victory in a 55% majority vote at a Staten Island, New York City warehouse to unionize the facility’s workers. The company argues that labor groups influenced the outcome of the vote.

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Amazon Workers Will Redo Union Vote After First Election Ruled Illegal

Amazon warehouse in Maryland

Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama, are set to hold a second union vote after the first election was deemed illegal, a federal labor agency said Tuesday.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that workers at the Bessemer warehouse would vote again on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) on Feb. 4. The second vote comes almost a year after the first election in which Amazon employees overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to join the RWDSU.

Following the unsuccessful unionization bid, labor organizers demanded a new vote, alleging that Amazon improperly placed the election ballot box on company property, which the union argued was a form of intimidation. The union also alleged that Amazon threatened warehouse workers with messages saying the facility might close or they might lose benefits if the union vote succeeded.

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Labor Board Orders New Union Election at Amazon Warehouse

Amazon warehouse in Maryland

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a new unionization election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, ruling that the company violated federal labor law during the first election.

“Today’s decision confirms what we were saying all along – that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace – and as the Regional Director has indicated, that is both unacceptable and illegal,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement Monday.

“Amazon workers deserve to have a voice at work, which can only come from a union,” he continued.

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Amazon Warehouse Workers Overwhelmingly Reject Unionization Bid, Organizers Cry Foul

Amazon warehouse in Maryland

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize, according to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tally of the vote.

More than half of the workers who cast votes in the Bessemer, Alabama election voted against unionization, the NLRB reported Friday morning. Although hundreds of the ballots were contested, largely by the company, Amazon’s margin of victory was large enough that the contested votes were rendered unimportant.

The NLRB counted the vote on a live teleconference that began Thursday and resumed Friday morning with a small group of observers including Amazon representatives, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) representatives and reporters.

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Teamsters Officials Forced out of LA Trucking Company After 80 Percent of Workers Sign Petition to Remove Them

The union for a Los Angeles trucking company, Teamsters Local 986, was forced out after nearly 80% of workers signed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to remove it.

The National Labor Relations Act governs private sector workers, unionization and how workers can remove a union from their workplace. In 27 right-to-work states, union payments are voluntary. In California and other non right-to-work states, union payments are mandatory for all unionized and non-union employees.

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NLRB Grants Michigan Construction Workers’ Petition to Vote on Union Removal

The National Labor Relations Board in Washington on Friday granted the petition of Michigan construction employees to defend their right to vote union bargaining representatives from the workplace.

The NLRB decision Friday overturns a November ruling by the Detroit NLRB, which dismissed two petitions filed by Rieth-Riley Construction Company employee Rayalan Kent and coworkers in which they requested a decertification vote against the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324.

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Amazon Loses Bid to Delay Unionization Vote at Its Alabama Warehouse

The National Labor Relations Board denied Amazon’s request to delay a unionization vote in its Bessemer, Alabama warehouse and ensure it’s conducted in-person.

In January, Amazon requested that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) delay the unionization election, arguing that the proposed mail-in ballot election would disenfranchise up to 1,700 workers. The Bessemer, Alabama warehouse’s nearly 5,800 total workers will begin voting in favor or against unionization on Monday.

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Labor Experts: Biden’s Unusual Firing of NLRB General Counsel Possibly ‘Unlawful’

Just minutes after taking office on Jan. 20, President Joe Biden’s Office of Presidential Personnel demanded that Senate-confirmed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Peter Robb resign. Robb refused, citing the unprecedented nature of the demand, and was fired.

His deputy, Alice Stock, also was asked to resign, refuses, and was fired the next day.

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