Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant, which joined the United Auto Workers last year, is the first in the South to have unionized through an election since 1940. As first contract negotiations stall, the UAW is gathering pledge cards for a possible strike.

Volkswagen has dug in its heels in first contract negotiations at its assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where workers won a landslide victory in last year’s union drive.

“We’re still waiting for the company to agree to a proposal that simply affords us a fair share,” auto worker Steve Cochran testified before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on October 8. “We are living with health care that forces people into bankruptcy. We are living with no protection from inflation.”

In March, Volkswagen cut shif

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