VW Labor Chief to South: Get Unions or No More Deals

The head of Volkswagen's General Works Councils in Germany is threatening to block any further investment in the southern United States, Reuters reports, after workers at VW's Chattanooga plant voted against union representation. "I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the South again,' Bernd Osterloh said. "We as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor" of one.

Osterloh blames US conservatives for stirring up "massive anti-union sentiments." He serves on a 20-member supervisory board split evenly between workers and management that could block future investments unless Chattanooga gets a German-style workers' council. VW would still like to create a council without the United Auto Workers union, the New York Times reports, but legal experts say that might violate federal laws against company-controlled worker groups. Some anti-UAW workers have offered to set up an alternative union to get around the problem. (More Volkswagen stories.)