[HN Gopher] Volkswagen workers vote overwhelmingly to join the UAW
___________________________________________________________________
Volkswagen workers vote overwhelmingly to join the UAW
Author : danans
Score : 134 points
Date : 2024-04-20 06:03 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| lucas_membrane wrote:
| Volkswagen expected the plant to be unionized when they were
| planning it, and it was OK about that. However, the local
| political leaders in power let it be known that they would not
| offer VW various incentives for locating the plant in TN if it
| was to be unionized, presumably because union workers are much
| more inclined to vote for, and unions much more inclined to
| contribute to the opposite party. There are three other large
| non-union auto plants in Tennessee and two in neighboring states.
| The UAW certainly thinks that the VW plant will demonstrate the
| advantage of collective bargaining to workers in those other
| plants.
| nytesky wrote:
| I thought part of the attraction was "right to work" https://ww
| w.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_work_state#:~:text=.... made the
| unions far more fragile?
| MithrilTuxedo wrote:
| The theory may be premised on false beliefs about unions.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| It does make things tougher financially for the union but
| certainly still doable. Especially if you have a big national
| like UAW that can step in if need be. My guess would be if
| 70% voted in favor you'd see around that amount paying dues.
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| Did the union gets seats in the board of directors - as they
| have in germany?
| Applejinx wrote:
| If I understand correctly, German law REQUIRES labor to be
| represented on the board, so it's interesting that they were
| able to set up a plant in Tennessee in the first place when
| they could not comply with German law doing so.
|
| This in no way upsets Volkswagen, in other words. It's normal.
| avianlyric wrote:
| It seems to be upsetting VW's local US management[1], even if
| their German based management might be quietly pleased with
| this outcome.
|
| [1] https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/06/volkswagen-declares-
| war...
| jwagenet wrote:
| Based on that article, European management seems to be
| pushing against US unionization too (installing anti union
| local ceo, etc)
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Anecdotally, I have not come across any German, Austrian,
| or Swiss CEO who liked unions.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Pretty much, and that's considering unions in Europe are
| a lot weaker than in the US. A lot of union busting goes
| in in Austria even if unions are legal. Austrian Antron
| Paar is notorious for firing everyone who voices about
| starting a union.
|
| So I have no idea why grandparent and other commenters on
| HN, would assume VW would be "silently happy" to see more
| unions, when I'm pretty sure they're not that happy about
| already having one in Germany but they have to tolerate
| it because it's the law there, but deep down they'd
| rather not have any at all as that's how businesses role.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| > Pretty much, and that's considering unions in Europe
| are a lot weaker than in the US.
|
| I think you may be talking beyond your knowledge here.
| Unions in the Nordics are incredibly strong with clear
| majorities in at least Denmark and Sweden (I'll let
| someone else chime in on Norway).
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| I was wrong to generalize. What I meant was the unions in
| Europe where I am(Austria) are weaker than in the US
| since they're too nice and non confrontational resulting
| in loosing at their own interests.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Respectfully, I don't think you know what you are talking
| about.
|
| There are no comic book mafia labour unions with no show
| contracts, but employees' rights in Austria are
| _monumentally_ better in almost every way compared to the
| US.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Please, don't move the goalposts, I was comparing unions'
| power not workers' rights, tow deferent things.
|
| Just look how useless the IT union in Austria was with
| it's salary increases below inflation. You know what
| would have helped with their negotiations? The right to
| strike and let IT infra fall apart for a day, but oh
| wait, they're not allowed to by law. Unions in the US are
| a lot more confrontational than in Austria.
|
| But since you opened that can of worms, some companies in
| Austria will fire you on the spot if you talk about
| starting a company union(Betreibsrat) because in Austria
| you have no workers protection against being fired for no
| reason, even while you're on sick leave.
|
| Even colleagues from the US were shocked on how easy it
| is for them to get fired here when back home they could
| have sued for unfair dismissal, but here they were told
| they have no grounds because the employer can terminate
| you any time for any reason. Another mate, got sued by
| his employer since the IT infra he was in charge of
| crashed while he was sick in hospital and the employer
| could find him liable for the damages by Austrian labor
| law. In Austria, not the US. And let's not talk about the
| infamous 'all-in' contracts some companies use to get you
| to work unpaid overtime.
|
| Now tell me more about these amazing workers' rights in
| Austria.
| theyinwhy wrote:
| I am not an Austrian but what I found online is very
| different to what you are writing. - Unions bargaining
| for everyone, including non-members. Where on earth do
| you have something like that? - IT KV giving everyone a
| yearly raise instead of only raising the minimum income -
| Also, laws against "Motivkuendigungen" seem a lot like
| "protection against being fired for no reason" - You have
| all-ins everywhere, this is not some Austrian specialty.
|
| Oh and did you hear about the new US specialty of
| "unlimited vacation"? It is more or less the canceling of
| your vacation as every vacation you take will be used
| against you.
|
| I fear you have no idea what a safe haven of a country
| you seem to be working in.
| MandieD wrote:
| "... unions in Europe are a lot weaker than in the US."
|
| Maybe in other countries, but certainly not in Germany. I
| grew up in the southern US, and am still astounded at how
| strong and effective unions are here, even in
| conservative Bavaria. I'm in IT, but employed under a
| permanent contract that was negotiated by and is enforced
| by IG Metall, the industrial union for all non-management
| employees of lots of companies, regardless of job
| function. For example, Germany requires that employers
| give 24 paid vacation days per year. The contract I
| signed has 30.
|
| As the post-COVID inflation spun up, they pretty quickly
| got us an 8% across-the-board pay increase without much
| drama, because they're taken pretty seriously by
| management, and that's on top of lots of little increases
| over the years.
|
| I don't adore everything IG Metall does, but I have
| trouble even imagining a comparable situation in the US,
| especially the southern US.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| You're comparing the most powerful union in Germany
| though. There are much weaker unions in Europe. For
| example the IT union in Austria is super weak.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > so it's interesting
|
| Not at all. I don't think German labor law ever applied to
| American residents working in the US...
| Log_out_ wrote:
| Well, naturally, same as in Germany.
| hash872 wrote:
| Eh. Sectoral bargaining is very very different from the much
| more-confrontational US model where individual firms unionize,
| to the extent that I don't really think they should even be in
| the same category as each other. In an alternate history
| sectorally bargained US, auto workers might actually have lower
| wages than UAW workers do today because the manufacturing
| industry sectoral union wants to have a more competitive export
| sector. They are just two completely different models of not
| just unionization but how to organize society and have labor-
| corporate-government relations, so it's not helpful to compare
| them
| specialist wrote:
| I was surprised at the time that Volkswagen's labor stakeholders
| in the EU permitted non-union shops elsewhere.
|
| A solid win.
|
| For future, I support sectorial bargaining, to level the
| battlefield.
|
| (Idle thought: Perhaps UBI would serve same purpose.)
| avianlyric wrote:
| VW runs a "Works Council" for the German plans, which is
| basically a union, except it's funded by the company rather
| than union dues. As it happens it's illegal for companies to
| contribute any financial support to a labor organisation in the
| US [1].
|
| So while VW originally wanted a union, and "Work Council" type
| setup when they came to the US. Local law basically made it
| illegal for VW to do that. Not only that, but the local
| politicians seemed to have fought tooth and nail to discourage
| VW workers from unionising. It also seems that since the plant
| was originally setup, US based management have brought their
| strong dislike of unions to the table. So while VW didn't try
| to prevent unionisation originally, in more recent years their
| US management has made it very clear they don't want unions,
| and also don't like the "Works Councils" that VW operates
| elsewhere.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/business/volkswagen-
| worke...
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| And the US VW management is not under the control of the
| German VW management who own the US subsidiary? Therefore the
| anti-union actions from the US management come with the
| blessing or even the order of the German management?
| Wytwwww wrote:
| How is not allowing the company to directly fund unions
| "anti-union"? It's the opposite if anything, it keeps them
| independent and prevents them from being coopted and
| influenced by management (after all UAW seems to be
| generally more effective than German unions).
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| This year has been absolutely amazing for Union drives:
|
| https://aflcio.org/formaunion/union-organizing-wins
|
| Anyone who is rightfully dissatisfied with the share of value
| they own compared to capital should be unionizing to seize the
| means from them
| kbolino wrote:
| Growing tensions with the PRC have been essential for this. If
| VW had to compete with BYD, I doubt the former would survive.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Elon is right, tariffs are going to be necessary if we don't
| want to cede the auto industry to China, and I cannot imagine
| we do. It's really hard to compete with nearly slave labor.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| That same slave labor is the reason why so many western
| companies moved their factories to China in the first place
| form 1978 when China open to international business and
| leaving a working class of people without jobs, and VW was
| one of the first to open a factory there.
|
| Funny how we never saw the usage of Chinese slave labor as
| an issue warranting tariffs when it made western companies
| huge profits and leaving westerners jobless, but only when
| they have to face with the new Chinese competitors and
| loose profits do they cry wolf.
|
| Hypocrisy much?
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I'm not sure it's hypocrisy so much as pure self-
| interest. It would be hypocrisy if the complaint was
| actually about the condition of Chinese workers. Few
| really care about that unless they're jumping out of
| windows, and most not even then.
|
| In both cases, it's just capitalists wanting to make
| money. It may be awful but it's at least consistent.
| kbolino wrote:
| Three generations, several Presidential administrations,
| and a few massive shifts in geopolitical realities later,
| it's more amazing how much continuity there has been in
| policy than how "hypocritical" a bunch of totally
| different people are to each other.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I don't think the problem is slave labour. I think it's
| just that the Chinese companies don't seem to care about
| undercutting themselves, and will instead sell as much as
| they can to whoever will buy.
|
| I can go on Alibaba and buy batteries directly from Eve
| Energy Co for reasonable prices-- batteries that I could
| stick in my homebuilt electric car, or do exactly whatever
| I wanted with. I can buy synthetic crystals, quartz, yttria
| stabilized zirconia monocrystals, sapphire boules, etc.
|
| In the west all these things are locked up. You can't buy
| them if you're an ordinary person, so no one buys them to
| experiment on.
|
| A western car manufacturer wouldn't sell batteries to an
| individual, nor would his supplier. But in China they don't
| care, if you pay, you get it.
|
| Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The
| government actually analyses things and figures out
| critical technologies for the future and makes sure that a
| decent number of people are working seriously on them, that
| they do this as a job, and with the intent of actually
| realising large-scale production with real impact.
| verteu wrote:
| Are VW's shareholders actually doing well?
|
| It seems Volkswagen stock is down -16.23% last-5-years, and
| trading at a price-to-book ratio of 0.39.
|
| I'm not an accountant, but with such a low P/B ratio, is there
| a chance the company gets bought out and liquidated for its
| assets, costing everyone's jobs?
|
| For comparison: Ford trades at price-to-book ratio of 1.13 and
| is up 16.62% last-5-years (still not much better than the risk-
| free rate). And long-term TSLA shareholders, of course, have
| made incredible profits.
|
| https://ycharts.com/companies/VLKAF/price_to_book_value
|
| https://ycharts.com/companies/F/price_to_book_value
| srockets wrote:
| It bears repeating that Tesla isn't in the same category:
| their main value is in their stock price, not stamped metal
| and batteries, or even the knowledge in assembling those into
| vehicles.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Tesla isn't in the same category: their main value is in
| their stock price,_
|
| So it's like Bitcoin. It's worth a lot because a lot of
| people believe it's worth a lot.
| srockets wrote:
| This is true for any stock. The difference between
| speculation and investment is what drives that belief in
| future worth of the assest.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| That would make Tesla's value more speculation than
| investment.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| VW's problem is the EU: the EU decided (corruption?
| incompetence? both?) to hand over the EU market to non-EU
| companies, like the chinese ones.
|
| They way they did that was to come up with the craziest green
| agenda ever: no more sales of ICE vehicles in the EU by...
| 2035. They decided that a few years ago and this was the
| beginning of the end for all the EU car manufacturers.
|
| There's no way the EU car manufacturers can be competitive
| with Tesla on one hand (better batteries) or the chinese
| (way, way, way cheaper vehicles) by 2035.
|
| So EU politicians, in their usual idiocy, decided to destroy
| the economy of the biggest country in the EU, Germany.
|
| Seeing this as an EU citizen makes me sick.
|
| I understand that it's great to take ESG postures but... At
| the cost of destroying your entire economy? All the while the
| EU is a measly 400 million people and there are _billions_ of
| people in, say, China and India who don 't give a fuck about
| destroying the planet.
|
| Insanity. 2035 was way too early: this left no time to german
| car manufacturers. A sad state of affair.
| toyg wrote:
| "EU politicians" don't exist. The EU agenda is set by
| national governments in the Council - including the German
| one, which happens to have produced important Commissioners
| like _the current Commission President_.
|
| The woes of VW have little to do with the green agenda (the
| electric switch is a reality worldwide), and more to do
| with a brand tarnished by the emission scandal and the
| whiff of corruption emanated by the (lack of real)
| consequences in Germany - because the German government
| largely looked the other way.
| aurareturn wrote:
| Yes, EU decided to hand over their markets to China even
| though Mercedes and Audi sell more cars in China than all
| of Europe combined.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > is there a chance the company gets bought out and
| liquidated for its assets
|
| Not really. Its partially state owned and considering the
| influence of the unions and the government nobody could
| really buy it (especially not to liquidate it).
|
| The valuation is not great, but they are still reasonably
| profitable also it pays a 5-7% dividend which is quite decent
| (and I think if its taken into account the return over the
| last 5 years was positive if still not great).
| MasPlan wrote:
| Such unionization also has significant spill-over effect on non-
| unionized workers, which improves their outcomes also
| (https://www.nominalnews.com/p/unions-strike-action-and-
| the-e...). It's good to see this shift as it also improves
| outcomes for consumers.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Saw how comfortable and respectful unionized jobs are when my
| wife had a medical condition. At my tech company, they'll try to
| create fake narratives to PIP you out.
|
| Unions are totally worth it when there is abuse of power.
| srockets wrote:
| s/abuse of power/imbalance in power/
| loa_in_ wrote:
| Imbalance of power is almost universal, but the abuse of it
| isn't necessarily so.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Good for them. More shops should be unionized.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Some more discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40094264
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-04-20 23:02 UTC)