CHATTANOOGA, TN Feb. 17 (DPI) – Friday’s vote by Volkswagen’s 1500 workers to reject representation by the United Auto Workers was a watershed event in American economic history – a small, narrow vote of 712-626 that will be talked about for generations to come.

If a mere 45 voting workers at the VW plant had reversed their vote and chose in favor of union certification, the UAW effort would have won by a single vote.

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal trumpeted the results with front-page headlines, and readers on WSJ.com were somewhat predictably over-the-top in their glee of the outcome. The NYT, surprisingly, did not attach a comment board, to its lead news item, perhaps a reflection of its fear of a broader anti-UAW sentiment among Americans following the bankruptcy of Detroit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/business/volkswagen-workers-reject-forming-a-union.html

The outcome was especially striking given that VW management gave the UAW access to the shop floor to lobby its cause.  So the results shocked many across the US political spectrum.

Still, op-ed writers at the WSJ admitted that the fight to unionize foreign-owned auto-assembly plants in the US South wasn’t over.

Initially, though, the pro-business WSJ was triumphant: “Even with Volkswagen management on its side, the union that combined with CEOs to nearly ruin U.S. car makers couldn’t persuade a majority voting in a secret ballot to let it become their agent to bargain with the foreign-owned company.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304315004579385332756856374?mod=trending_now_1

The NY Times, meanwhile, clung to what may be a phony premise: That VW workers must have UAW membership to create a so-called “works council” like those in Germany. Steven Greenhouse wrote:

Many American labor experts say it would be illegal under federal law for a company to establish a works council unless workers first voted to have a union represent them. Without that, a works council might be viewed as an illegal company-dominated, company-created employee group.

For Volkswagen officials here and for many employees who support creating a works council, the challenge is how to legally set one up now that the workers rejected the U.A.W.

Readers on many sites declared that balderdash: If the workers want a works council to communicate with management, let them have one. Laws protecting the UAW’s role in any kind of organizing are long passe, they said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/business/labor-regroups-in-south-after-vw-vote.html

WSJ.com reader comments (10 recommendations or more):

Remarkable. The UAW can’t even close the sale when management surrenders.  Maybe the workers saw what the UAW and a complicit management did in Detroit. The UAW is still alive only because Obama bailed it out while screwing bondholders in the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies.  Unfortunately, the NLRB, a stalwart of fair elections, will probably find an excuse for a do-over election.

As someone that lives in the Chattanooga area, I was happy to see that wisdom prevailed during the recent referendum at the VW plant. During the golden era of Detroit, the UAW pulled the cruelest hoax on its members by telling them that the Company that was providing them with a good paying job was somehow their enemy. Most southerners are smart enough to realize that anyone that is paying them to work is their friend.

The union said in a statement, “Unfortunately, politically motivated third parties threatened the economic future of this facility and the opportunity for workers to create a successful operating model that that would grow jobs in Tennessee.” The lack of self awareness is stunning.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of thugs. Hooray for the workers who booted them out.