President Joe Biden has come out swinging against a group of red-state Republican governors, after the United Auto Workers (UAW) union managed to win over the workers at a Tennessee VW plant, which it announced on Friday:
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers — marking a major milestone for the union and its first successful organizing drive of an automaker outside of Detroit’s Big Three.
Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support for the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the election. A total of roughly 3,620, or about 84%, of the 4,326 eligible VW workers voted in the election, the NLRB said. Seven ballots were challenged and three others were voided.
Biden of course used the opportunity to take a victory lap for one of his endorsers, saying in a statement:
“Across the country, union members have logged major wins and large raises, including auto workers, actors, port workers, Teamsters, writers, warehouse and health care workers, and more. Together, these union wins have helped raise wages and demonstrate once again that the middle-class built America and that unions are still building and expanding the middle class for all workers.”
Read: Biden Meets With Skepticism As Teamsters Push PRO Act in Endorsement Meeting
On Tuesday, the governors of six red states released a letter rightly opposing the vote to unionize:
The joint statement, signed on by Republican Govs. Bill Lee (Tenn.), Kay Ivey (Ala.), Brian Kemp (Ga.), Tate Reeves (Miss.), Henry McMaster (S.C.), and Greg Abbott (Texas), was issued Tuesday — just a day before a Volkswagen (VW) plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is expected to vote on whether to organize with UAW.
The governors, in their statement, said they are “highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the UAW has brought into our states.”
“As Governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by,” the group wrote.
You can read the full statement here.
Biden bristled at the governors’ letter in his statement after the successful vote, claiming they were trying “to influence workers’ votes by falsely claiming that a successful vote would jeopardize jobs in their states.”
He continued:
“Let me be clear to the Republican governors that tried to undermine this vote,” the president added. “There is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose.”
No one was trying to undermine the voting. Whenever Democrats talk about everyday Americans, it seems that they see them as unable to think or act for themselves–if it doesn’t align with their politics. Shameful.
Related: Large Drop of UAW Membership in Michigan Is Bad for Biden and Democrats but Great for Trump
