(Note: This episode originally ran in 2023.) Union membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, support for unions among Americans was the highest it's been in decades. This dissonance is due, in part, to the difficulties of one important phase in the life cycle of a union: setting up a union in the first place. One place where that has been particularly clear is at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Back in 2008, Volkswagen announced that they would be setting up production in the United States after a 20-year absence. They planned to build a new auto manufacturing plant in Chattanooga. Volkswagen has plants all over the world, all of which have some kind of worker representation, and the company said that it wanted that for Chattanooga too. So, the United Auto Workers, the union that traditionally represents auto workers, thought they would be able to successfully unionize this plant. They were wrong. In this episode, we tell the story of the UAW's 10-year fight to unionize the Chattanooga plant. And, what other unions can learn from how badly that fight went for labor. This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Josephine Nyounai, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Keith Romer. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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Last week, unions got a big win.
Workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to unionize by a lot, 2628 votes for, 985 against.
And this is a result that even less than a year ago kind of felt like a long shot, which I feel comfortable saying because we did a whole episode on the plant in Chattanooga.
Today we are revisiting that episode.
It ran originally in October 2023, and its about why it has been so hard to unionize in places like Tennessee, why it wasnt happening.
And then at the end, we will have an update about what changed last week and how this win is potentially just the first domino to fall.
It all starts with the story of a party back in May 2011.
Hundreds of people dressed business casual, show up, have some hors d'oeuvres, and witness the grand opening of a brand new 2 million square foot auto manufacturing plant.
This is spectacular.
This is the good stuff.
It's like a fun party.
Some of the guests are cars.
The crowd is invited to an enormous room with rows and rows of chairs facing a stage.