Marathon Pundit: VW workers will file suit over UAW free-to-peek card check campaign

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

VW workers will file suit over UAW free-to-peek card check campaign

VW too?

Card check, that free-to-peek method to join a union--What's wrong with secret ballots?--has definite drawbacks, as some auto workers in Tennessee have learned.

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

Seven workers at Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant are filing federal charges against the United Auto Workers, saying the union misled and coerced them and other employees to forfeit their rights in its card-signing campaign to gain their support, a group said today.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said its attorneys are to file the charges today with the National Labor Relations Board's regional office in Atlanta.

Earlier this month, the UAW said a majority of the plant's workers had signed cards authorizing the union to represent them. It also said it was asking VW to recognize the union because of the cards rather than hold a secret-ballot election at the plant.

According to the foundation, VW workers were told by UAW organizers that a signature on the card was to call for a secret-ballot election. The workers also charged other "improprieties" in the card-check process, including using cards that were signed too long ago to be legally valid.