A group of hourly employees at Volkswagen's Chattanooga assembly plant filed a petition Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board seeking an election to form a union affiliated with the UAW that would potentially cover more than 1,700 hourly employees at the plant.
According to the filing, the potential union would cover "all full-time and regular part-time production and maintenance employees" at the plant, including all production and skilled team members and leaders. The Chattanooga Times Free Press first reported the filing, and said the union seeks to hold the election in late April.
In 2014, about 53 percent of workers in the plant voted against union representation, following weeks of campaigning by the UAW as well as conservative activist groups and politicians. In 2016, the NLRB ordered the German automaker to begin bargaining with the UAW after skilled-trades workers in the plant voted 104-48 in December 2015 to join the UAW.
A spokesman for Volkswagen Group of America said the automaker's North American headquarters has seen the petition, but is not commenting "at this point."
