Notice informs VW Team Members of their rights in light of threat posed by new NLRB rule for bypassing or overturning a secret ballot election

Chattanooga, TN (February 9, 2024) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a special legal notice to thousands of autoworkers at Volkswagen’s production plant in Chattanooga, TN. The notice comes as officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union are making their third attempt to unionize the facility, despite workers voting down the union in both 2014 and 2019. The full notice is available at https://www.nrtw.org/vw/.

The Foundation’s legal notice informs autoworkers that, due to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) recent decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, UAW officials can impose the union’s monopoly representation on employees through the so-called “card check” process and bypass the NLRB’s traditional secret ballot vote procedure. A card check drive lacks the security of a secret ballot vote and allows union officials to extract union authorization cards directly from workers, often through misleading or coercive tactics.

“Employees unionized under a card check are not allowed to vote on union representation in a secret-ballot election,” the notice reads. “However, prior to Cemex, employers could refuse to impose union representation on their workers based on a card check. That is why, in the past, Volkswagen employees were allowed to vote on (and reject) UAW representation.”

Union Could Skip Election Entirely or Nullify Unfavorable Election with “Authorization Cards”

The notice explains that Cemex upends the union election process. Now, if UAW union officials claim they have collected authorization cards from the majority of workers in the unit (news reports indicate UAW officials are already claiming this) the union can be granted bargaining power over every worker at the plant without a secret ballot election.

While VW management could request a secret ballot vote in such a circumstance, the NLRB doesn’t have to grant that request. Under the new Cemex standard, it is shockingly easy for the UAW to prompt the NLRB to cancel a vote, or alternatively, to overturn an employee election that doesn’t go in the union’s favor.

As the notice points out: “The UAW is already laying the groundwork for cancelling or nullifying a secret ballot election by filing unfair labor practice charges against Volkswagen.”

Foundation Notice: VW Workers Must Be Vigilant Against Underhanded UAW Tactics

“Volkswagen employees who do not want to be subject to UAW representation must be vigilant about their rights,” the notice reads. “If the UAW can collect authorization cards from a bare majority of Volkswagen workers, the UAW can impose itself on Volkswagen employees quickly and without them being able to vote on whether they actually want union representation.”

The notice reminds Volkswagen workers that they have the right not to sign a union authorization card, and a right to revoke authorization cards they’ve signed. It also advises workers of their right to campaign against the union and to circulate petitions against union representation.

Finally, the notice informs employees that they can contact National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys for more information on their rights or for free legal aid in exercising them. The Foundation extends this help to workers especially if they are threatened or forced to accept unwanted union representation, or if they witness union agents misleading or coercing employees to sign union authorization cards.

In 2013, Foundation attorneys represented eight VW Chattanooga employees. The workers filed charges against the UAW for collecting cards using coercive and misleading tactics, and Foundation attorneys later defended the workers’ vote to reject the UAW after union officials sought to challenge the results of the 2014 vote.

“UAW union officials have returned to VW Chattanooga and appear to be laying the groundwork to bypass a secret ballot vote like the ones union officials lost during previous unionization attempts at the plant,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The new NLRB Cemex card check unionization scheme is untested in federal court, but it appears that UAW officials may seek to make VW Chattanooga workers a ‘guinea pig’ for testing if union officials and NLRB partisans can impose the union on workers without a secret ballot vote.”

“If the UAW is to be believed, UAW officials already secured a sufficient number of union authorization cards to formally ask the NLRB to hold a secret ballot election at VW Chattanooga,” Mix continued. “So VW team members need to understand that additional cards are not needed to request an election, but can be used to bypass a secret ballot vote like the ones held in 2014 and 2019.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.