Das Auto is Awesome.

The rednecks in the state government did everything underhanded they could to keep Tennessee Volkswagen workers from going union.  It was a move that pitted the company against, not its workers, but the government.  Volkswagen had to come out and dispel the lies, announcing that it welcomed a union but it was too late and the workforce was sufficiently intimidated/discouraged that it voted the union down.

In the wake of concerted federal, state and local anti-union interference, Volkswagen's labour council announced that, if the company did build any more American plants, they wouldn't be in the anti-union South.

According to the United Auto Workers, Volkswagen has decided of its own accord to recognize the union in its Tennessee plant.  The UAW says the announcement is expected this week.  That should send a Star Spangled rocket up those redneck asses.

The Right was so strenuously opposed to VW workers going union out of fear that it might spread of other workers in other companies in the low-wage slave states.

Volkswagen Labour Council Vows to Block Expansion in the Anti-Union South.

Wrap your head around this idea.   Volkswagen AG has a labour panel - 20 members, half-management, half-labour.  The panel has to approve any plant closures or plant expansions and, right now, the panel has about had it's fill of America's anti-union, southern ways.

Last week in Tennessee, federal, state and local politicians ganged up to intimidate workers at the VW plant there into voting against establishing a union.  They shamelessly exploited workers' insecurity with scare tactics about how VW wouldn't expand and how the southern auto industry would collapse if the union was voted in.   Volkswagen not only remained neutral on the union campaign but openly refuted the scare tactic claims as lies.

The other shoe has dropped.  Volkswagen, you see, prefers its workers unionized.  It suits the company.  It finds that a factory 'works council' sorts out problems, improves labour relations and productivity.  Those Germans have this weird idea that management and labour can work cooperatively. 

Now the chief labour spokesman of the company's workers' panel has lashed out at the old boys of Tennessee and their Deep South ways.

"I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again," said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW's works council.

"If co-determination isn't guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor" of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW's supervisory board, said.

The 20-member panel - evenly split between labor and management - has to approve any decision on closing plants or building new ones.

Osterloh's comments were published on Wednesday in German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. A spokesman at the Wolfsburg-based works council confirmed the remarks.

"The conservatives stirred up massive, anti-union sentiments," Osterloh said. "It's possible that the conclusion will be drawn that this interference amounted to unfair labor praxis."

Kind of makes me proud to own a Volkswagen.

Porsche - Playing the Market in Wolfsburg

BBC News has a fascinating story about the legendary Porsche automaker and how it became a "a hedge fund with a carmaker attached."

It seems Ferdinand Porsche's namesake, known for its iconic sports cars, has been furiously playing the stock markets. Last year Porsche made six times more on the market than it did on its car business.

Why?

It's been playing the market to get enough money to achieve its life long dream of getting total ownership of Dr. Ferdinand's other brainchild, Volkswagen. Right now Porsche owns or controls nearly three quarters of the outstanding shares of VW.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7843262.stm