The United Auto Workers union is hopping, steaming mad over the fact that it lost the vote to unionize workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant last night. So mad, in fact, that they're blaming nefarious outside forces.
Bob King, the president of the UAW, is all about the blame game at this point, according to Reuters:
"We are outraged at the outside interference in this election. It's never happened in this country before that a U.S. senator, a governor, a leader of the house, a leader of the legislature here threatened the company with those incentives, threatened workers with the loss of product," Bob King, the UAW president who has staked his legacy on expanding into the south, said.
Because the election loss was in no possible way his fault, and because it is absolutely impossible that the workers could decide to remain union-free, it is obviously due to the ever-threatening "outside interference," that mainstay of dictators and plutocrats alike.
In this case, the "outside interference" specifically refers US Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who actively campaigned against the union vote, and eventually decided the best thing to do was just make shit up.
For his part, Corker said he was "thrilled."
There was also the case of those misspelled billboards, which probably swayed just about nobody.
In truth, this was an incredibly complex issue, and until actual plant workers start talking, we may not entirely know the reasons for which the vote failed. Not only was the UAW supporting the union vote, but so was Volkswagen itself, in the hopes that it could create a European-style "works council," that would include both blue-collar and white-collar workers.
On the other hand, the UAW hasn't exactly artfully handled itself over the past couple of decades, so there's that.
While this is a huge setback for the UAW and unionized labor in general, it probably won't mean the end of the UAW as we know it. Although this may become a big turning point for the organization.
Photo credit: AP