(20 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chattanooga, Tennessee - 19 April 2024
1. Wide of Volkswagen workers reacting to the vote results
2. Tight on woman holding a UAW sign and cheering
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Brooke Benoit, Volkswagen employee:
"I'm about to cry. I waited 14 years. This is my third union drive here. We finally got it. I don't have to move back to Michigan. I can stay here."
4. Wide of people chanting "Union Yes"
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Brooke Benoit, Volkswagen employee:
"Um honestly I think what changed the most is everybody started seeing what we could get when the Big 3 went on strike. And they said wait, hold on. If they can get all this, we should too. We do the same job, just in a different location. So I think that really helped us big time."
6. Tight on seal on the union hall wall
7. Wide of people holding up union shirts
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Vicky Holloway, Volkswagen employee:
"I don't know. Its a great, its the greatest feeling that I've felt like in a long _ in 13 years. OK this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Body shop. Those kids in body shop, they came through."
9. Wide of people cheering for the UAW
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers:
"Volkswagen family, welcome to the UAW family."
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers:
“I think it's the reality of where we are and the times that we're in. Workers are fed up in this country. They are fed up with being left behind. And obviously you know with our win in the Big 3 bargaining, we've motivated a lot of workers to realize there's better for them."
12. Tight on a man with a UAW shirt walking into the union hall
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers:
"All we've heard for years is 'You can't win here. You can't do this in the South.' And you can. Workers can do it."
14. Wide of flags and logo at Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Ream, Volkswagen employee:
"Workers, the people that do the job, build the cars, our voices need to be heard. And we need to be treated fairly and not dictated to every second of our day. And also I was really inspired by kinda sitting back and watching Shawn Fain and the UAW and the Big 3 contracts. We all kinda looked like, we can obviously be doing way better than this."
16. Wide of logo at Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga
STORYLINE:
Employees at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union Friday in a historic first test of the UAW’s renewed effort to organize nonunion factories.

Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership in plantwide votes.

But this time, they voted convincingly for the UAW, which is operating under new leadership directly elected by members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers.

Brooke Benoit, Volkswagen employee, was in tears as she watched the results come in with a group of union supporters at a union hall near the plant.

"I'm about to cry," said Benoit. "I waited 14 years. This is my third union drive here. We finally got it. I don't have to move back to Michigan. I can stay here."

Vicky Holloway, another employee, had also waited years to see the plant vote for unionization.
"its the greatest feeling that I've felt like in a long _ in 13 years," Holloway said. "OK this is wonderful."

UAW president Shawn Fain came to watch the vote count and congratulate the workers.



Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...