![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nationalreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Volkswagen-Union.jpg?fit=789%2C460&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nDetroit\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 Volkswagen workers\u2019 vote for United Auto Workers representation last week was driven by the union\u2019s promise of the same rich $108,000 annual pay package (equivalent to a Silicon Valley software developer\u2019s income) that the union won for Detroit Three blue-collar workers last fall.<\/p>\n But VW\u2019s surrender to the highly partisan union played a factor as well.<\/p>\n In a not-so-subtle threat to all 13 nonunion auto companies being targeted by the UAW, 33 Democratic Party senators sent a letter earlier this year demanding that they remain neutral in the union\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe a neutrality agreement is the bare minimum standard manufacturers should meet in respecting workers\u2019 rights,\u201d wrote the senators, before getting to the point. \u201cEspecially as companies receive and benefit from federal funds related to the electric vehicle transition.\u201d<\/p>\n Unionize, or pay the consequences.<\/p>\n These are dramatically different times in the U.S. auto industry since the UAW last tried to organize VW\u2019s Chattanooga plant in 2019. Today\u2019s industry is being forced by U.S. governments \u2014 at both the federal and state levels \u2014 to manufacture electric vehicles to solve the manufactured climate crisis.<\/p>\n Failure to meet government sales mandates will be met with massive fines that increase by leaps and bounds after 2026. California, the nation\u2019s biggest auto market, will, for example, require that 35 percent of automaker sales be of battery-powered vehicles by 2026. Failure to meet that number will cost them $20,000 per vehicle for every vehicle below the threshold. The percentage jumps to 43 percent in 2027, 51 percent in 2028, 59 percent in 2029, and 68 percent in 2030 on the way to outlawing the sales of gasoline cars in 2035. Federal penalties are similarly harsh.<\/p>\n Tesla aside (as an EV-only seller, it is not only exempt from penalties, but also receives generous subsidies), just 5 percent of sales today are electric, with 50 percent of EV buyers returning to a gas car when they go back to market.<\/p>\n To help automakers meet their arbitrary sales goals, the U.S. government is greasing the \u201cEV transition\u201d skids with billions in federal aid under the Inflation Reduction Act to construct battery plants and sweeten each EV purchase with $7,500. To gain that subsidy, the Biden administration prefers that EVs be domestically produced \u2014 preferably with UAW labor that ultimately benefits Democratic election coffers.<\/p>\n An admirer of Communist Chinese industrial policy, Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm is determined to follow in their EV footsteps.<\/p>\n \u201cChina . . . has adopted 14 five-year plans that are focused on dominating supply chains and manufacturing products that we used to excel in. They\u2019re producing huge volumes of solar panels and EVs,\u201d she told media allies at the National Press Club in February. \u201cBut we are fighting back.\u201d<\/p>\n VW got the message. It was notably neutral in its handling of this year\u2019s UAW campaign, in contrast to the union\u2019s narrow 2019 defeat when the German transplant actively discouraged unionization \u2014 creating a website detailing the benefits of a non-union shop as well as links to anti-UAW editorials and UAW corruption.<\/p>\n With a UAW shop, VW will lose its competitive cost advantage over Detroit automakers \u2014 a big reason it located its sprawling 350,000-square-foot facility in right-to-work Tennessee in 2011. VW\u2019s nonunion labor costs are 30 percent less than those of U.S. competitors on the popular VW Atlas SUV and VW ID.4 electric vehicle, and the plant hasn\u2019t been shackled by inefficient UAW work rules.<\/p>\n But the cost equation may be changing as governments dictate product planning.<\/p>\n Ford lost over $4 billion on its EV operations last year, and VW EV sales have cratered in Europe, where EVs are also mandated. VW has dealt with unions for years in Europe and may feel the cost of unionization is a necessary price to stay in the good graces of Democrats who control the subsidy spigot.<\/p>\n \u201cVW is accustomed to a union environment in Germany,\u201d said veteran industry analyst and Seeking Alpha columnist Doron Levin. \u201cBut the UAW is likely to be more adversarial and militant than Germany\u2019s metal workers union.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s the second time VW\u2019s U.S. facilities have opened their doors to the UAW. The union successfully organized Volkswagen\u2019s Pennsylvania facility in 1978. Years of labor unrest followed, with VW eventually shuttering the plant in 1987.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery autoworker in this country deserves their fair share of the auto industry\u2019s record profits, whether at the Big Three or the Non-Union Thirteen,\u201d UAW president Shawn Fain said in response to the senators\u2019 February letter. \u201cIt\u2019s time for the auto companies to stop breaking the law and take their boot off the neck of the American autoworker, whether they\u2019re at Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, or any other corporation doing business in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n In Chattanooga, Fain got his wish and will next target Mercedes\u2019 Alabama plant. But as unionization takes hold, workers may regret its consequences. Detroit Three automakers are accelerating robotic automation in their plants to replace expensive worker jobs. In union-heavy Europe, meanwhile, the high costs and low demand for EVs have led to thousands of layoffs in the last year as carmakers and their suppliers struggle to meet governments\u2019 socialist EV vision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People react as the result of a vote comes in favor of the hourly factory workers at Volkswagen’s assembly plant to join the United Auto Workers union, at a watch party in Chattanooga, Tenn., April 19, 2024.\u00a0(Seth Herald\/Reuters) And why Volkswagen employees are likely to regret it. Detroit\u00a0\u2014 Volkswagen workers\u2019 vote for United Auto Workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32628,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32617\/revisions\/32628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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