Samuel Messidor
Volkswagen announced last week (3/13) it is cutting down its Chattanooga, TN plant to two shifts from three by March 31, meaning layoffs for an unspecified number of the 4,300 workers at the plant.
The workers at VW Chattanooga unionized in April of 2024 after a years-long struggle, marking the only victory so far in the UAW’s drive to unionize the largely non-union auto workforce in the South.
This drive comes on the heels of the UAW’s “Stand Up” partial strike at the Big Three American auto monopolies, which ended in concessionary contracts. The workers’ struggle was held back by UAW chief Shawn Fain, darling of the Democrat Party mafia who has now shifted closer to Trump and his chauvinist trade war tariffs, which he claims is good for “American workers”.
Local mayor Weston Wamp has blamed the workers unionizing for the layoffs, despite claims to the contrary by the company, which itself cites “underused capacity”, meaning overproduction of the means of production. A worker at a March 13 union rally outside the plant told monopoly media he believes the layoffs are a threat to scare workers into accepting a bad contract.
VW Chattanooga was already laying off workers and supervisors before the successful union vote, especially on their electric vehicle (EV) lines, citing harsh competition from Chinese EV companies which are massively out-competing the US and European EVs. These layoffs continues the trend of layoffs across auto manufacturers in the US and Europe.
Aside from the rally, UAW has responded by filing federal labor charges, alleging the company is laying off workers illegally, before they have a chance to negotiate for their first union contract, which has been delayed by six months. UAW chief Shawn Fain accused VW of “unacceptable, anti-union, anti-worker, and un-American conduct” in an appeal to Trump, leaning into the chauvinist “America-first” rhetoric of the Republican Party mafia.
Fain says VW is “choosing to attack American auto jobs” despite record profits—this pushes the lie that capitalists are individually choosing to oppress their workers or not, making it a problem of good boss vs bad boss. He also mixes up straight profits, which can grow as the economic crisis grows, with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, driving the capitalists to overproduction crises.
The UAW chiefs have not put up a fight so far against the mass layoffs with which the auto monopolists are hitting the workers, pushing the burden of the economic crisis onto the working class.
Volkwagen in Germany was in crisis with the rest of the German economy recently, with the major German auto manufacturers planning massive layoffs and plant closures. Mass demonstrations and strikes by the auto workers’ unions in Germany erupted, and the German government, the union chiefs, and the companies agreed to anti-worker concessions to relieve the pressure from the companies. German imperialism is in crisis as part of the general imperialist crisis. The US’s sole hegemonic position among the imperialists partially insulates it from the crisis, but the continuing trend of layoffs shows this is not air-tight.
Image: UAW President Shawn Fain at a rally during the 2024 union drive at VW Chattanooga, UAW media
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