The United Auto Workers are seeking a an election to represent maintenance workers at Chattanooga's Volkswagen assembly plant. But the UAW already has a sizeable presence at the plant: UAW Local 42 is a Chattanooga-based group that claims to represent more than half of the plant's blue-collar workforce, although the group doesn't have the power to collectively bargain or organize strikes.
Another union also represents plant workers. The American Council of Employees is a locally-created union without any ties to a national organization. Like UAW Local 42, they can't strike.
How unusual is this, having two unions at a plant, but neither has the power to collectively bargain?
"It's very unusual," says Phillip B. Wilson, President and General Counsel of the Labor Relations Institute. Wilson joins us to discuss why these two unions exist at VW Chattanooga and to talk about other union topics.
