Tennessee’s GOP governor says Volkswagen plant workers made a mistake in union vote

By JONATHAN MATTISE
Associated Press

GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee says he thinks workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga made a mistake by voting to unionize under the United Auto Workers in a landslide election. Before the vote, Lee and five other Southern Republican governors spoke out publicly against the campaign, arguing that if autoworkers were to vote for union representation, it would jeopardize jobs. Instead, the union wound up pulling 73% of the vote at a facility whose workers had narrowly rejected the union in 2019 and 2014. Next up, workers at Mercedes factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will vote on UAW representation in May.