The United Auto Workers’ ambitious drive to expand its reach to nonunion factories across the South and elsewhere faces a key test Friday night, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will finish voting on whether to join the union. The UAW’s ranks in the auto industry have dwindled over the years, and workers at the Chattanooga plant have previously rejected union membership. But this time, the UAW is operating under new leadership and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers. The union’s new president, Shawn Fain, led the UAW in a series of strikes last fall against Detroit’s automakers that resulted in lucrative new contracts.
