[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Anyone think VW played Devil’s Advocate? Pretend to be open to unionization knowing that it will Epic Fail anyway?

[Blood of Tyrants]

No, from all I have heard, they thought that the union would give them a built in organization to form a worker’s quality improvement committee. Little did they know that the UAW’s primary purpose is to raise money to give to DemocRats and to keep bad workers on the job.

[tanknetter]

Anyone think VW played Devil’s Advocate? Pretend to be open to unionization knowing that it will Epic Fail anyway?

No, I don't think they did.

I think that they really wanted the "Workers Council" that is pretty engrained in their corporate culture to exist at the TN plant. They accepted that in order to make that happen they needed to have the UAW come in.

I also don't think they understood what impact the UAW being in their labor-relations mix would have. Actually, I think they were downright clueless in assuming that the downside of having the UAW in would be offset by the benefits provided by the Workers Council.

Here's what I don't get - why is having outside union representation a legal prerequisite to having a Workers Council? Why wouldn't the establishment of an independent local union be adequate? Other than it would cut a big national union (UAW) completely out of the mix, and the legal deck is completely stacked in the favor of big national unions. So I guess the question is rhetorical.

It still seems to be a COMPLETE violation of the whole freedom of association thing ...