Senator Bob Corker's anti union voter manipulation scheme may have just f**d the South for good

So it looks like the joke's on Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) and the workers at the Volkswagon plant that voted down a measure to join the UAW last week.

Germany has a co-determination model that mandates workers councils, which are similar to unions in that they represent worker interests.

The head of Volkswagon's "Works Council" told a German newspaper that Volkswagon would now be hesitant to expand in the South as a result of the union vote.

"I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the South again," said works council leader Bernd Osterloh.

"If co-determination isn't guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor" of building another plant in the right-to-work South, Osterloh added.

The vote was influenced by Corker and others who misled workers by telling them that if they voted down the union, Volkswagon would add new production at the plant, a claim that Volkswagon vehemently has denied.

Corker's interference is against the law and gives the National Labor Relations Board every reason to void the vote. However, it's not likely that the NLRB will do that because it's afraid of incurring the wrath of Congressional Republicans as they have gone after the NLRB in the past and have attempted to defund it and shut it down.

But the vote was definitely influenced illegally despite the fact that Volkswagon, the company, was IN FAVOR of unionization.

Hopefully with Corker's help the South has just fucked itself and we start to see a backlash and a  migration of manufacturing jobs back up to the unionized North.

Joshua Holland — How Fear Beat the UAW in Tennessee (via Moyers & Company)

How Fear Beat the UAW in Tennessee (via Moyers & Company)

On Friday, a three-day election process ended when Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted against joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) 712 to 626. Coming into the vote, both sides knew what was at stake — the union drive was a direct threat…

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Tennessee autoworkers vote against their own interests and the interests of workers everywhere

Autoworkers at a Volkswagon plant in Tennessee voted down a proposal to unionize tonight. In doing so these workers just voted against their own interests and ceded even more power to the corporation they work for. What they get in return is a low paid, highly vulnerable job. 

This was another example of a brilliantly executed strategy by the elites, together with government (yes, the Tennessee GOP, led by Senator Bob Corker) to further a relentless divide and conquer strategy that pits worker against worker and 99 percenter against 99 percenter.

It's sad but true that workers today are too scared to unionize because they fear losing their jobs. Ironically this makes them even more vulnerable. Corporations have unions: they're called lobbyists. So why do workers vote to have nothing? That is the height of foolishness. 

Many of the protections and benefits that workers enjoy today, like the 40-hour work week, weekends off, child labor laws and other statutes that are on the books came out of the bloody labor struggles of the early 20th century. People sacrificed--and died--so that we could enjoy these little things. 

In contrast, workers today are afraid to even metaphorically spill blood. They've been completely beaten into submission by a level of unbridled corporate power that is unprecedented and we've sat back and allowed it to grow over the past 40 years without any challenge whatsoever. 

Now it's too late. And if you don't think it's too late then just consider the fact that after everything we've seen and experienced with respect to joblessness, income inequality, skyrocketing corporate profits, obscene executive compensation, corporate welfare and such, and workers STILL can't vote to demand a little tiny something for themselves, well, that says it all. We're done. We're slaves.

The TN autoworkers' vote tonight was a vote against workers everywhere. It was a vote against a decent society. No balls. We're all whipped.