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Nashville, Tenn. • The United Auto Workers says Volkswagen officials have reneged on a pledge to recognize the union at the German automaker's lone U.S. plant in Tennessee.
Gary Casteel, the UAW's secretary-treasurer, released a 2014 document Tuesday stating that Volkswagen would recognize the UAW as the representative of its members in exchange for the union dropping a challenge to the outcome of a union election at the plant in Chattanooga.
The union said the written agreement stemmed from negotiations at a meeting led by Volkswagen's then-chief financial officer, Hans Dieter Poetsch, who has since been named chairman amid the company's diesel emissions cheating scandal.
Volkswagen is mounting a legal challenge to a union election at the plant last year in which about 160 skilled trades workers voted to be represented the UAW.