WHY NOT HERE IN SEATTLE?

German law requires works councils, giving employees a role in management, at all large German companies. This may mean VW needs to move out of the South! Or at least one of their Volkswagen subsidiaries!

After the workers in Tennessee were coerced to reject the UAW by threats from Republican lawmskers that the State would cut of subsidies to the plant, the head of Volkswagen’s works council told German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the automaker would hesitate to expand in the U.S. South.

“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.

Osterloh’s characterization blasts what Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) was saying before the balloting: “I’ve had conversations today and based on those am assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in Chattanooga,” Corker said last week.

“The conservatives stirred up massive, anti-union sentiments,” Osterloh said. “It’s possible that the conclusion will be drawn that this interference amounted to unfair labor practice.”

If this is true for VW why isn’t it true for Boeing? Where is its work council in South Carolina?

Why shouldn’t WASTATE go after any new VW plant?