Volkswagen workers are voting on whether to join the UAW. The results could be felt nationwide

Renee Berry has been working at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee since 2010, shortly after it opened, long enough to see the majority of her co-workers twice vote against joining the United Auto Workers union. She thinks the third vote taking place this week will be different.

“It’s a totally different ball game,” she said. “The atmosphere is different. You see more pro-union than anti-union [workers]. A whole lot of people who were anti-union in the past have switched.”

The union vote at the Volkswagen plant will mean more than whether the 4,300 hourly workers in Chattanooga are members of the UAW or not. It could be the start of a revolution in the US auto industry, which has not seen a new automaker unionize in nearly 50 years.

Today the industry is split almost evenly between unionized and nonunion workers at US auto factories, and the unionization of a factory in Tennessee would give unions a high profile beachhead in the South, which has long been difficult territory for unions to organize.

Because the plant is in Tennessee, and not Michigan or Pennsylvania or some more unionized northern state, the results could be close, as they were in the two previous votes in 2014 and 2019 at the plant. The latest vote saw 52% decide against joining the union.