“How Volkswagen Has Gotten Away With Union-Busting”, 09 May 2019

Reports from Volk­swa­gen work­ers in the plant paint a dis­turb­ing pic­ture of a com­pa­ny that is exploit­ing the bro­ken sys­tem of U.S. labor laws to fight the union — vio­lat­ing the rights of work­ers in ways that would nev­er be accept­able in the company’s home country.

For the past four years, Volk­swa­gen has retained the ser­vices of the noto­ri­ous union-bust­ing law firm Lit­tler Mendel­son. The same firm assist­ed Nis­san in defeat­ing the UAW dur­ing a union elec­tion in 2017.

[A union supporter] was walk­ing through the park­ing lot to join three of his cowork­ers hand­ing out fly­ers when he saw secu­ri­ty approach them…

These kinds of scare tac­tics are a com­mon response to union dri­ves. They’re also poten­tial­ly an unfair labor prac­tice — a vio­la­tion of fed­er­al labor law that could be inves­ti­gat­ed by the NLRB.

Volk­swa­gen man­agers also began doing their fair share to intim­i­date pro-union workers.

But the com­pa­ny has also tak­en some unprece­dent­ed actions, like requir­ing all hourly employ­ees on the day shift to attend an anti-union meet­ing in the plant led by Ten­nessee Gov­er­nor Bill Lee…