CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee — Some are betting they will make history this week as Volkswagen AG workers vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers in this southern auto-producing state, where a right-to-work law is ingrained in its constitution.

Those pushing for unionization at the sprawling plant surrounded by the mountains of East Tennessee speak proudly of their effort, expressing certainty they will win when voting concludes Friday; those against express worry that such a revolution could lead to fewer jobs in an area branding itself as the "Motor City. The new one."

The vote carries enormous implications for VW, roughly 4,300 hourly employees at the plant and the Detroit-based union: it is seeking to organize foreign-owned auto factories across the South after decades of failed attempts, including election defeats by VW workers in 2014 and 2019.

This is a new time, some workers say. Even as opposition remains from political power figures in the South — including Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and a “Still No UAW” campaign launched in the weeks leading up to the election — supporters say the push against them isn’t as aggressive as before.

“This feels totally different than the first two times,” said Yolanda Peoples, 42, a 13-year VW worker. “The first two times when we tried to organize, we were like a secret society. We weren't even that free to speak about the union inside the plant.”

Support for the union this time isn’t hard to miss. On Sunday, three days before the National Labor Rights Board-sanctioned election, workers and community members supporting the unionization effort filled a union hall about 10 minutes from the plant, which produces the VW ID.4 EV as well as the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport SUVs.

Standing outside the hall during the event, workers Douglas Snyder, 39, a four-year employee, and Robert Soderstrom, 46, an 18-month employee, detailed why they’ve been promoting the union to their colleagues as members of the volunteer organizing committee.

Of course, there’s discussion of wages, benefits and vacation time, bedrock issues for UAW contracts in the auto industry and other sectors. But safety and ergonomics are also prime concerns that can motivate workers across an assembly plant.

“There’s a lot of things that we talk about daily that have nothing to do with compensation," Soderstrom said. "It's really hard to concentrate on building quality product when all you're doing all day long is thinking about how bad your shoulder hurts, or how bad your feet hurt or how bad your knees hurt."

Inside the union hall, would-be members formed a sea of bright red shirts emblazoned with the slogan “future UAW worker” and a UAW symbol stamped on the back in white. The crowd erupted in cheers while digging into hot dogs and hamburgers when Dariusz Dabrowski, the secretary-general of the European and global Works Council at Volkswagen, donned the same UAW shirt. Dabrowski came from Germany to support the UAW. The Works Council represents salary and hourly workers abroad.

“I just wanted to encourage you to take your future in your hands,” Dabrowski told the crowd through a translator.

In a statement to The Detroit News after the union gathering, Dabrowski said he went to Chattanooga as a “passionate unionist who knows that the organized voice of the workforce creates better companies. My visit to Chattanooga in this crucial week leading up to the UAW vote is aimed at ensuring the integrity of the election process. It is essential that the election takes place in a fair and impartial atmosphere. We are here to ensure that the workforce can cast their votes without intimidation. There must be no pressure from external groups such as anti-union organizations.

"Management has also committed itself to neutrality, and our task is to convince ourselves of this. We are determined to intervene immediately should any irregularities occur," he said. "This election must be a genuine, free and fair election by our colleagues — that is our goal. Our presence sends a clear message: every vote counts and should be cast in an environment of safety and respect."

Volkswagen has publicly remained neutral on the effort to unionize its only U.S. plant. In a statement, the company said: “We respect our employees’ right to decide who represents them in the workplace. We fully support the NLRB’s secret ballot election process in Chattanooga so that every team member has a chance to vote in privacy on this important decision.

"We are working hard to make sure all employees know when, where, and how to cast their ballot so their voices are heard. We have been very clear with our employees that no one will lose their job by voting for or against the union. No one will know how an employee votes unless they share it themselves.”

Over several days before voting started Wednesday, The News asked more than a dozen employees outside of the plant how they planned to vote. Most said they were voting yes, while a few were undecided. One expressed concerns.

Deonte Easton, 25, a three-month employee at the plant, isn't planning to vote. He worked at a unionized Coca-Cola plant before and still lost his job even with the union protection.

“I just don't feel like unions are really there for employees,” he said after getting off the second shift at the Chattanooga plant.

Inside the plant, Easton said: “It seems like either everybody's yes or everybody just doesn't care. I haven't really heard of any no's, really.”

Regardless of the vote's outcome, Easton said he wants to see change inside his workplace, particularly how VW handles employee medical issues and the assessment of points that can lead to discipline.

'Still No UAW'

There is opposition to the UAW on the ground in Chattanooga, and it’s being circulated by a group that calls itself “Still No UAW.”

Corey Linn, 39, a 13-year worker at the Volkswagen plant, said in an interview that he's one of the leaders of the Still No UAW campaign, which workers run with support from area businesses and Chattanooga residents.

"I'm voting no because we've had a lot of really good changes since I've been there, and I'm just really concerned if the UAW gets in, that could possibly shut our plant down, or there could possibly be layoffs," Linn said.

Posts on the "Still No UAW" Facebook page and website encourage workers to vote no because the UAW has endorsed President Joe Biden in his reelection bid against former president Donald Trump. Biden is the only U.S. president ever to walk a picket line when he did so last year in Michigan with UAW President Shawn Fain during the union’s strike against the Detroit Three automakers.

One post read: “TRUMP SAYS -----> VOTE NO!!!” above a cutout picture of the former president with “Shawn Fain is a dope vote no!” in a speech bubble above him.

On Monday afternoon, new signs supporting this group were displayed outside the plant. By Tuesday morning, they were gone. Down the road, large blue “Back Biden, Vote UAW” signs remained.

Linn said more of the "Still No UAW" signs were taken down again Wednesday after putting more up on Tuesday.

"The last two elections we had, it wasn't as tense as it is now. It's more like harassing, bullying ... that kind of atmosphere," Linn said. "A lot of people that are voting no wouldn't even help with our campaign because they don't want to be in the spotlight because of all the retaliation."

During the week of the voting, the “Still No UAW” Facebook page published several video employee testimonials of why they are voting no in this election. “I don’t trust Biden. I don’t trust the UAW. I’m voting no,” the employees chant together in the video.

“If you have any hesitation about the UAW, vote no,” employee Dirk Horvath said in one of the videos. “You guarantee your chance to find the answers and come up with a solid answer for yourself. If you vote yes, it’s done.” Horvath has worked for VW in Chattanooga as a logistics specialist for seven years, according to his LinkedIn page.

The UAW campaign also has drawn political opposition, both in Tennessee and in Alabama, where the union hopes to move its organizing campaign next. Local and state Republican officials have held press conferences near the Chattanooga plant in recent weeks. And six southern Republican governors, including Bill Lee of Tennessee and Kay Ivey of Alabama, issued a joint statement Tuesday saying they are "highly concerned" with the union's organizing campaign, which they said was "driven by misinformation and scare tactics."

"Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy — in fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs," said the statement from Lee, Ivey and the governors of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. "In America, we respect our workforce and we do not need to pay a third party to tell us who can pick up a box or flip a switch. No one wants to hear this, but it’s the ugly reality."

Stephen Silvia, author of "The UAW's Southern Gamble" and a professor at American University, argues that in organizing, unions have to push for support in the workplace, the boardroom and in the political realm.

"It's harder to organize in the South because most of the politicians in office in the South are Republicans and they see the UAW as an organization that could make campaigning for office more difficult for them," Silvia said. "They see the UAW is being supportive of the Democrats."

Outside of party politics, southern politicians have attracted investment to their region by "saying 'we have relatively low wages, and we don't have a very high unionization rate.' And so if the UAW came in, that obviously would run counter to both those things."

Even with the politics at play, Silvia still thinks the UAW has its strongest chance so far to win in Chattanooga.

One reason: the leadership change at the UAW, whose members chose Fain as president last year in the union's first direct election. Fain came to power after the UAW battled through a federal corruption investigation that sent two former union presidents and other top officials to federal prison. It also led to the union being put under the supervision of a federal monitor.

The change at the top "allowed the UAW to turn a page from a period of corruption, and I think Shawn's approach is also allowing the UAW to turn the page from 30 years of exchanging concessions to preserve jobs," Silvia said.

During the union's negotiations last year with the Detroit Three automakers, Fain sent members from Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV to picket lines in what the UAW called a "Stand Up Strike" with different plants selected as targets throughout the talks. The strikes lasted more than 40 days before contracts were reached with all three automakers.

The negotiations brought gains that include 27% general wage increases over the life of the agreements, which expire April 30, 2028; ensured the return of benefits lost during the Great Recession, such as cost-of-living adjustments; and secured pathways for the organization of battery plants under the master agreements.

With reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments that were suspended in 2009, the union estimated the top wage will rise 33% to more than $42 per hour. The starting wage would increase by 67% compounded with estimated COLA to more than $30 an hour.

In November, like several other nonunion foreign automakers, VW gave Chattanooga workers an 11% pay raise. Top assembly plant workers in Chattanooga make $32.40 per hour.

Darrell Belcher, 54, a 13-year worker at the Volkswagen plant who is voting no, said the economics of union involvement has been a worry.

"I'm not any different than anybody else. Everybody wants to make as much as they can get ... but we gotta be reasonable here. We can't price ourselves out of a job," he said.

Why UAW?

From the sidewalk outside of the employee parking lot along Volkswagen Drive, pro-UAW signs were visible this week across the dashboards of vehicles parked there.

One of the workers proudly displaying the signs was Landon Robinson, 34, a four-year employee who stopped at the local City Café Diner near the plant after his Monday day shift with the signs still on display.

He wants to see three areas addressed with VW: adding profit-sharing, improving safety precautions and revamping the paid-time-off system to include sick days, he said: "I feel like they're trying to stuff as much as they can in a minute and 20 seconds and that's where the safety comes in."

Patricia McFarland, 56, a Michigan native, donned a black "Just a Michigan girl in a Tennessee World" T-shirt at the Sunday picnic. McFarland, who's worked at the VW plant for two years, didn't know coming in that it was nonunion.

"I figured it was like one of the Big Threes, you know, I struck gold getting in," she said, but instead she feels like "every day is my last."

She's pushing for the union "because the work conditions can be a whole lot better, the pay could be a whole lot better, the benefits could be a whole lot better."

Isaac Meadows, a 14-month employee, said he wants to unionize the plant because, time after time, the company has shown "that people are not important to them. The car is really the only thing that's important to them."

Meadows, 40, says there are issues with safety and ergonomics: "We want to come together and have a voice and show them that people are the greatest asset in the plant."

When Meadows started at VW, he said employees talked about the union "in whispers and dark corners." Now, they discuss it freely and even wear UAW gear inside.

"I feel very confident," Meadows said. "The atmosphere is good, the excitement's there. The main question we've been hearing for the last three months is, 'Hey, when are we gonna vote, when are we gonna vote?' Now everybody's excited to vote."

The results of the Volkswagen UAW election should be released Friday night after voting closes at 8 p.m. and the ballots are counted.

The significance of this vote is not lost on the volunteers behind the push to unionize. A few hours further south in Vance, Alabama, workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant are also prepping for an NLRB election to join the UAW.

"We're the tip of the spear right now for this movement for UAW and for all of the other auto manufacturers," Soderstrom said. "This is big, and we're part of it. This is history for us."

Snyder added: "We want to be the ones to send the message: 'If we can do it, you can do it.'"

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