Volkswagen workers in Tennessee voted decisively to become a union, according to election results released Friday, marking the first victory for organized labor at a foreign-owned auto plant in the southern United States.

With a solid 73 percent support, employees at the Chattanooga plant voted in favor of United Auto Workers representation at the 13-year-old factory, according to results released by VW, a triumphant result for unions in a region in which it has not achieved significant progress for a long time.

“Volkswagen workers just made history!” said a UAW post on X, the old Twitter.

VW, which took a neutral position in public communications, said in a news release that the election “was administered through a democratic, secret ballot supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.”

“Volkswagen thanks its Chattanooga workers for voting in this election,” the company added.

Parties have five days to file objections, the NLRB said, adding that “the employer must now begin bargaining in good faith with the union.”

– Biden applauds –

The vote marks the latest major victory for Shawn Fain, who was sworn in as UAW president in March 2023 and subsequently won major pay raises for members following last fall’s “Stand Up Strike” at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

In November 2023, Fain announced an ambitious organizing campaign aimed at unionizing 13 companies with nearly 150,000 workers, with most of their headquarters in southern US states such as Tennessee.

Chattanooga was the first plant to qualify for an election. The next vote will take place at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance, Alabama, from May 13 to 17, the NLRB announced earlier this week.

The victory in Chattanooga gives further impetus to UAW efforts in Alabama and beyond. A UAW news release also cited a Toyota plant in Missouri and a Hyundai factory in Alabama as locations with active campaigns.

President Joe Biden, who made a historic visit to the UAW picket line last fall, applauded the outcome and characterized VW as the last big victory for unions, proving “once again that the middle class built America and that unions “We are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers.”

– Challenge to the Southern model –

Although the UAW has long targeted the South, it has been consistently rejected in previous elections, including two previous failed campaigns in Chattanooga.

But labor experts said the UAW had a better chance this time thanks to positive momentum from the Detroit strikes, which took place in a broader context of worker activism in a tight U.S. labor market.

“You see the salary, the benefits, the rights that UAW members have at work, and you see how that would change your life,” VW coach Zachary Costello said in the UAW press release. “That’s why we voted overwhelmingly for the union.”

However, a test for the UAW in the Alabama elections and beyond will be the aggressive anti-union stance of the region’s powerful politicians.

On the eve of the UAW vote, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee joined five Republican governors from other Southern states in issuing a statement denouncing the UAW campaign as a threat to the local economy and jobs.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who also signed the declaration, said governors wanted to protect the model in the Southeast, which is based on “great relationships between our employers and their employees,” he told CNBC on Friday.

“What the UAW is doing will destroy those types of relationships,” Kemp said.

Biden criticized the governors’ statement as an ill-conceived effort to “undermine this vote” based on “false” claims.

Stephen Silvia, author of the book “The UAW’s Southern Gamble,” which chronicles previous failed campaigns, called the victory a “turning point” for unions with major potential implications for the South.

“The South has been based on a model that offers low wages and minimal voice to workers,” Silvia said. “Workers are now realizing they got the short end of the stick and would like to change.”

Silvia said both Chattanooga and the Mercedes plant in Alabama were attacked in previous campaigns by the UAW, giving the organization a foundation for the current campaign.

The win in Tennessee raises the stakes in Alabama, Silvia said.

“There will be a lot more political attention, not only in Alabama, but in Washington,” he said.

jmb/smw