Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first Southern autoworkers not employed by one of the Big Three car manufacturers to win a union Friday night when they voted to join the United Auto Workers by a “landslide” majority.

This is the first major victory for the UAW after it launched the biggest organizing drive in modern U.S. history on the heels of its “stand up strike” that secured historic contracts with the Big Three in fall 2023.

“Many of the talking heads and the pundits have said to me repeatedly before we announced this campaign, ‘You can’t win in the South,'” UAW president Shawn Fain told the victorious workers in a video shared by UAW. “They said Southern workers aren’t ready for it. They said non-union autoworkers didn’t have it in them. But you all said, ‘Watch this!’ And you all moved a mountain.”

According to the UAW’s real-time results, the vote tally now stands at 2,628 — or 73% — yes to 985 — or 27% — no. Voting at the around 4,300-worker plant began Wednesday.

@UAW President Shawn Fain tell @VW workers: “Volkswagen family, welcome to the UAW family.” Video by @JoanMcClaneCTFP pic.twitter.com/NQxDEb6Xs5

— Alison Gerber (@aligerb) April 20, 2024

The Chattanooga workers announced their current union drive in December 2023. Friday’s victory follows two failed unionization attempts at the plant in 2014 and 2019.

“We saw the big contract that UAW workers won at the........

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