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FEATURING CEDRIC DE LEON - Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) last week in a historic win for organized labor. Volkswagen is a German automaker and its Chattanooga plant was the only one in the entire company to not have union representation. It was also the first time a foreign-owned auto manufacturing factory in the southern United States unionized. UAW’s next union vote will take place at two Mercedes plants in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in mid-May.

Republican governors in Southern states have taken a hard line against UAW. The Governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas signed on to a letter referring to the UAW as, “special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”

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